During an audience with Frank Tyson at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, the fascinating conversation shifted towards Bishen Singh Bedi's description of the bowling action of Muttiah Muralitharan, the record wicket-taker. "If Murali doesn't chuck, then show me how to bowl," Bedi, the forthright former Indian slow left-armer, had said in an interview. "How can you call it bowling? He has no follow-through and he makes no use of his shoulders. His arm doesn't go up at all. I have a picture of him bowling somewhere. He looks like a good javelin thrower." Tyson, one of the fastest bowlers ever to grace the game, was incandescent. "I am sorry," he said, "but I don't think Mr Bedi knows what he is talking about." "Typhoon Tyson" left his chair to give a practical demonstration to illustrate his point. "In javelin throw or shot-put, or even in baseball, you have to stop before you throw. If you try to do it in motion, you will lack speed and direction."In cricket, we do not stop in our bowling action, so it can never be described as throwing. The problem is with the law, and if you take it literally, there has been no bowler in history who has not been a chucker." Tyson's assessment was confirmed a few years later when an extensive biomechanical study conducted by the International Cricket Council (ICC) discovered that more than 99 per cent of the bowlers, including the likes of Shaun Pollock and Glenn McGrath, had actions contravening the law. Given the overwhelming scientific evidence, a panel of former Test cricketers - including Aravinda de Silva, Angus Fraser, Tony Lewis, Tim May and Dave Richardson - recommended that a flat rate of 15 degrees of elbow extension should be the demarcation point between bowling and throwing. Fraser, writing in The Independent, claimed even the likes of Fred Trueman, Dennis Lillee, Curtly Ambrose, Imran Khan, Richard Hadlee and Ian Botham were found to have exceeded the straightening-limit set by the ICC. Michael Holding, a former pace great from the West Indies, was also a part of this panel. Earlier, he had been in "110 per cent" agreement with Bedi's views on Murali's bowling action, but given the evidence from the laboratory kinematic analysis, Holding changed his view. "The scientific evidence is overwhelming," he said. "When bowlers who to the naked eye look to have pure actions are thoroughly analysed with the sophisticated technology now in place, they are likely to be shown as straightening their arm by 11 and in some cases 12 degrees. "Under a strict interpretation of the law, these players are breaking the rules. The game needs to deal with this reality and make its judgement as to how it accommodates this fact." The controversy over his action first came to the fore in the Boxing Day Test of 1995 when umpire Darrell Hair "no-balled" him for his action seven times. Later on the same tour, Ross Emerson did the same in a one-day international. The great Sir Donald Bradman felt that Hair calling Murali was "the worst example of umpiring that I have witnessed, and against everything the game stands for; clearly Murali does not throw the ball". The endorsement from the peerless Bradman, however, did not cut any ice with his fellow Australians. Even Mark Richardson, who boasted a modest Test career with New Zealand, branded him a chucker. "There is no easy way to put this, no soft way to broach it, so here goes: Muttiah Muralitharan is throwing the ball," Richardson wrote in his column for Herald on Sunday, three years ago, after the Sri Lankan off-spinner had passed every possible test on his maligned action. Murali had even gone to the extent of bowling with braces designed to keep his arm straight for a Channel 4 documentary in 2004. The brace, approximately 46cm long and weighing just under one kilogram, was made from steel bar. Mark Nicholas, the presenter for the documentary, tried the brace himself and confirmed that, "there is no way an arm can be bent, or flexed, when it is in this brace". Yet, even with the brace on, there still appeared to be a jerk in his action. The conclusion: his unique shoulder rotation and amazing wrist action seem to create the illusion that he straightens his arm. "I think it will prove a point to those who had said that it was physically impossible to bowl a ball that turned the other way," Murali said in an interview with Wisden Asia after the filming of the documentary. "I proved that it was possible to bowl the doosra without bending the arm. "I think most people will be convinced that my action is fair and legal. I will be happy with 90 per cent. There will, perhaps, always be 10 per cent who are jealous. "I was very, very angry because I know these people, who watch from television and far away, don't know what they are seeing. Believe me, I know what a throw is. You can't throw and make the ball dip. I don't throw." Another biomechanical analysis in 2006 showed that Murali's average elbow flexure while bowling the "doosra" was 12.2 degrees, at an average of 86kph, while the average for his off-break was 12.9 degrees at 99.45kph. The new findings, however, have failed to convince Ross Emerson, the umpire who no-balled Muralitharan eight times during a one-day international in 1995, ironically from the bowler's end and even when he was bowling leg-breaks. Emerson called him again during an ODI in 1999 and insisted in an interview earlier this month with The Daily Telegraph thathe was fully justified. "I haven't changed my views in 15 years - he doesn't deserve the (wicket-taking) record," said Emerson. "You couldn't compare his record to Shane Warne's; no one ever doubted the legality of Warne's action. Murali was a great competitor and a great bowler, but a lot of the time he just didn't bowl within the limits of the law." Warne himself, however, wants Muralitharan to be remembered for the right reasons as he bids adieu to Test cricket with one final fling in the match against India, starting in Galle today. "Murali simply loved bowling. He loved a challenge (and) was fantastic for the game," said Warne, who is the second-highest wicket-taker in Test cricket, with 708 victims to Murali's 792. "Even though so much more Test cricket is played these days, I think Murali's record will stand for a long, long time and probably forever." Muralitharan needs eight more wickets to reach the 800 mark. Some like Bedi would prefer to call them "run outs", but as the bowler himself said, "I got no-balled, but I'm still alive." And he will continue to live in the memoirs of cricket forever. arivi@thenational.ae