This entry was posted on November 8, 2007 at 5:23 pm and is filed under Sport. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
Great work, Yobbo.
Anyone who looks at that pic and calls it a fair delivery is deluded.
One of the great travesties of the game is that this chucker is still playing, and every umpire who had the balls to call him has been sacked.
“The anthropometry assessment clearly shows that Mr. Muralitharan has a natural 35 degrees of elbow flexion during standing, which during the delivery action (under load) reduces to a value of approximately 24 degrees”
So, we are back to where we started, more or less, taking into account the internet’s ability to garble things, and the fact that the measurements probably have 3 degrees or more of error.
Well, I admit it is strange to me to measure an angle in percent, but it is reasonably clear why it should be a percentage of 180 – 180 degrees is flat, no bend. The most possible bend you could have (with an infinitely thin arm) is for the forearm to be bent all the way back, parallel with the upper arm – a bend of 180 degrees, or 100%. Darryl Foster, the source of the 21% quote, says 38 degrees in this interview.
Now, Foster was one of the authors of the study you linked to, which gives the angle as 35 degrees, so I don’t know what’s going on there.
As for the reduction to 24 degrees during delivery, that’s weird. The bit you quoted suggests that every time he bowls, the elbow gets as straight as 24 degrees. I think the authors were lazy when they wrote that, since their data explicitly shows that the suggestion is false. If you look at Figures 2 and 3, the angles it gives all over over 30 in Figure 2, as high as about 35 (you need to subtract the values on the y-axis by 90, otherwise it doesn’t make sense), and between 30 and 24 after the remedial work. Only in one ball out of the twelve (or maybe as many as three, the picture’s low-quality) did the angle get as small as 24 degrees.
A Yobbo\'s View 
November 8, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Hmmmm, “Murali has a 21 per cent permanent bend in his right elbow. His brother too is similarly afflicted.”
45 degrees – 21 degrees = 24 degrees
Seems to me that’s more than 15 degrees. More if the arm is not parallel to the plane of the photograph. You’re right Yobbo, trigonometry is fun!
November 8, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Yobbo must be RACIST
November 8, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Russ, that’s 21% of 180 degrees, or 38 degrees. 45 – 38 = 7, less than 15.
November 8, 2007 at 10:12 pm
Great work, Yobbo.
Anyone who looks at that pic and calls it a fair delivery is deluded.
One of the great travesties of the game is that this chucker is still playing, and every umpire who had the balls to call him has been sacked.
November 9, 2007 at 2:50 am
David,
1) who measures angles in per cent? And why would it be 180deg. Why not 15% as in the diagram (=31.5, which is on the borderline).
2) Murali supporter’s favoured science says:
So, we are back to where we started, more or less, taking into account the internet’s ability to garble things, and the fact that the measurements probably have 3 degrees or more of error.
November 9, 2007 at 5:35 am
Well, I admit it is strange to me to measure an angle in percent, but it is reasonably clear why it should be a percentage of 180 – 180 degrees is flat, no bend. The most possible bend you could have (with an infinitely thin arm) is for the forearm to be bent all the way back, parallel with the upper arm – a bend of 180 degrees, or 100%. Darryl Foster, the source of the 21% quote, says 38 degrees in this interview.
Now, Foster was one of the authors of the study you linked to, which gives the angle as 35 degrees, so I don’t know what’s going on there.
As for the reduction to 24 degrees during delivery, that’s weird. The bit you quoted suggests that every time he bowls, the elbow gets as straight as 24 degrees. I think the authors were lazy when they wrote that, since their data explicitly shows that the suggestion is false. If you look at Figures 2 and 3, the angles it gives all over over 30 in Figure 2, as high as about 35 (you need to subtract the values on the y-axis by 90, otherwise it doesn’t make sense), and between 30 and 24 after the remedial work. Only in one ball out of the twelve (or maybe as many as three, the picture’s low-quality) did the angle get as small as 24 degrees.
November 9, 2007 at 5:35 am
That should be “subtract the values of the y-axis from 90”, not “by 90”.
November 10, 2007 at 1:44 am
Well played!
November 12, 2007 at 11:18 am
Tex I don’t think Yobbo is racist. He seems prepared to criticise everything equally.
November 12, 2007 at 7:44 pm
I think tex was joking
November 13, 2007 at 9:37 pm
I wouldn’t say Yobbo’s a racist… and anglist perhaps, but not a racist.
Great image there, yoink.