Ajmal ban, was PCB caught unaware?

KARACHI: The suspension of Saeed Ajmal does not come as a surprise, though the fact that every ball he bowled in the tests conducted in Australia have been deemed illegal, is surely going to shock the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).

The ICC statement means that Ajmal would simply need to overhaul his action from scratch if he wants to add to his 35 Test, 111 ODI and 63 T20 caps.

At 36, Ajmal is going to find the task an extremely onerous one given that he has bowled a million times with the same action in a two decade span (including the time he was learning the art of bowling as a teenager).

While conspiracy theorists are calling Ajmal’s ban a plot to derail Pakistan’s World Cup preparations, the fact remains that the ICC had cleared their intentions on clamping down on dubious actions during their annual meeting in June.

The Anil Kumble led cricket committee had expressed reservations on the emergence of bowlers with suspect actions and impressed upon the governing body to dig deep in identifying and remedying their bowling style.

"The committee believed that there are a number of bowlers currently employing suspect actions in international cricket, and that the ICC's reporting and testing procedures are not adequately scrutinizing these bowlers," ICC said after a committee meeting in Bangalore on the eve of the annual gathering in June.

Of more pertinence is PCB’s response to the committee’s decision. It seems that the board was caught unaware of the resolve with which the ICC started identifying and suspending bowlers with suspect actions.

Before Ajmal, Shane Shillingford, Kane Williamson and Sachitra Senanayake were all asked to remodel their actions after they failed to clear the biomechanics test conducted in England or Australia.

Many former Test cricketers of note including some Pakistan captains privately raised doubts on Ajmal’s actions.

Similarly the tweets of Michael Vaughan and Stuart Broad questioning the legality of his action during Ajmal’s stint with Worcestershire during the English summer only fanned the flames further.

While the introspection would continue for some time yet, the PCB has to now brace for another tricky phase amid the turbulence that engulfs the sport in the country.

Pakistan does not have a single specialist off-spinner with international experience at present. The supposed back-up for Ajmal, Atif Maqbool and Adnan Maqbool have already been questioned on their dodgy bowling actions.

Other than the pair of the left-armers Abdul Rehman and Zulfiqar Babar, the cupboard is empty.

Raza Hasan another left-arm spinner has featured in Twenty20 only, while leg spinner Yasir Shah has played three internationals only (Two T20s, one ODI).

But with Ajmal facing to put it mildly an uphill battle to return to the international fold, Pakistan is left with no option but to groom a couple of youngsters.

Misbahul Haq the national captain was unwilling to experiment with slow bowlers other than Ajmal and Rehman in his four year captaincy stint and now in his last few games at the helm, he has been left bereft of his most reliable weapon.