Reprieve For Zimbabwe Cricket`s Malcolm Waller

By Perkins Bare

Malcolm Waller was the beneficiary of a second chance from the ICC as he successfully went through a rehabilitation chance in South Africa which then made him eligible again to bowl.

The bowler who had been banned by the ICC last year from bowling as a result of suspicious bowling action. The ICC said analysis "revealed that all of his off-spin deliveries exceeded the 15 degrees level of tolerance permitted under the regulations".

Malcolm Waller underwent reassessment work at the University of Pretoria this month with the remedial work concluding that Waller`s off-spin deliveries was well withinn the 15 degrees permitted by the ICC Regulations for the Review of Bowlers Reported with Suspected Illegal Bowling Actions.

Waller is not however out of the dungeon yet as Umpires are still at liberty to report him if they might suspect him of suspicious bowling action in the future. This is nothing to fear for Waller as he just has to be more careful and be cautious with his bowling in the future.

After being banned the downside of it will be that he will still be up for suspicion and with umpires still at that liberty it just goes onj to show the hypocrisy of the game as he then has to put in extra effort just to prove over and over again that his bowling action is legal. This can therefore hamper him from churning that energy into the right direction as he sees how he can become a better bowler.

We were being denied of a bowler with an average economy of 2.49 in Tests and has 57 first class wickets and also with an average ODI economy of 5.22. For such a busy period for Zimbabwe Cricket he will come in handy as the captain didnt have much choice which saw him using up to 8 bowlers per innings.

The ban came at a time when nine off-spinners, including Waller's Zimbabwe team-mate Prosper Utseya, were reported to the ICC for illegal actions over a span of13 months. Prosper Utseya also went through a rehabilitation process of some sort which saw him remodeling his action ending up with `cutters` which were however efficient especially in the matches played against Canada.

The whole debacle however raises some questions about our bowling coach Douglas Hondo, if he is doing enough in terms of technical advice to the boys because surely when we have a scenario whereby nine of our boys were reported for suspicious bowling action with two of the4m being eventually banned? Surely technical advice seems too be lacking.

This comeback by Waller is a testament to that fact as all he did was go through remedial work to prove that his action was legal. What it then means is that he just sat down went through video footage of his bowling action with professionals and was told exactly where he was getting it wrong which h just left him to take up the advice ti fix it.

It also then raises that same old debate about both our coach and captain Elton Chiogumbura. The two have nmore or less the same approach to the game whereby they prefer to just send out the lads onto the field of play and then let them enjoy the game. This then brings out the best out of the player as they can fully express themselves on the field of play.

But then my argument is that we have seen these boys playing and they tend to make schoolboy mistakes which tend to cost us dearly. This is all as a result of niot getting enough technical advice and in as much as we would want to limit that and bring the best out of our players by allowing them to express themselves fully on the pitch it has not been working so far. There is that one match that Raza was the captain and he took absolute control of the game and even though the players may complain of getting too much in terms of instruction it might just be good for them.

As for Waller he will be once again be up for selection in the series against Pakistan set top start on the 24^th of September to October 5.

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