Bangladesh Cricket Board counsel Mustafizur Rahman Khan has said Taskin’s ban by the cricket regulating body was a miscarriage of justice and a farce.
Khan told the Dhaka Tribune that the International Cricket Council’s decision to ban the Bangladeshi fast bowler contradicted its own regulations.
The lawyer, who practices at Bangladesh Supreme Court, said that the regulations provide for a player being banned if the stock delivery is found to be flawed.
He also put these statements in a facebook post.
According to the independent assessment, Khan said, Taskin’s stock delivery was not adjudged to be illegal.
Taskin, when asked to bowl nine bouncers at Chennai, was assessed to have illegal action in three deliveries. Khan pointed out that Taskin was not really getting anything out of that.
“Those three deliveries were also his slowest,” he wrote in the post. ICC should have put a warning on him and let him play, Khan said.
The lawyer raised four points of contention against the ICC decision.
His stock delieveries not illegal
Khan said he had looked through the Independent Assessment Report and the ICC regulations for the review of bowlers and found that there was nothing illegal with Taskin’s stock and yorker deliveries.
“Taskin’s …good length delivery and yorker being found legal, and these being the only deliveries bowled during the course of the match, it is clear that he did not employ an Illegal Bowling Action during the match in issue,” he said.
He did not bowl a single bouncer at the match
“The footage of his bowling …shows that during the course of the match, he did not bowl any bouncer. Not even one. So, he could not have been reported for bowling a bouncer,” he pointed out.
The regulations ask whether the player bowled illegally during the match, not under test conditions, Khan said.
He also noted that Taskin was asked to bowl the nine bouncers in in 3 minutes during the assessment, while in T20 a bowler can bowl only one bouncer an over.
The Match Officials’ report is non compliant
The review rule requires the player to replicate the specific bowling action for which he was reported. Khan went through the Match Officials’ Report, which initiated the review, and found that it did not specify any particular delivery or type of delivery.
“Indeed, it simply stated that they were ‘concerned with the legality of the action’,” he wrote. The report form also requires match officials to state the reasons why they are concerned. In Taskin’s case, no such reason was given.
Warning, not suspension, the rule
Khan said the rules states that where the player is assessed to have illegal bowling action in a specific type of delivery other than his stock delivery, they will be allowed to continue bowling in international cricket with a warning. With his stock delivery found legal, and only three of nine bouncers found illegal, he can only be warned and not suspended.
“In short, Taskin is the victim of a miscarriage of justice,” he concluded.
Khan said he had advised BCB to use these points to seek a review from ICC and later escalate it in arbitration up to the Court of Arbitration for Sports in Switzerland.
“There is a limit to such farce,” he remarked at the end of his post.
Source: Dhaka tribune
Normally I do not agree with lawyers, but in this case I am 100% behind Mr Khan’s comments. Also to be noted, such reviews and bans by the ICC are always directed against the smaller cricket playing nations, never against India (who control ICC), Australia, England….politics has invaded the pitch long ago.