Was the International Cricket Council right to suspend Taskin?

This is an updated post.
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My very good friend, the excellent lawyer Mustafizur Rahman Khan (who has also helped me out in a legal scrap or two) has written what appears to be a very persuasive Facebook status on the illegality of the suspension of the bowker Taskin Ahmed which concludes that the cricketer is the victim of a 'miscarriage of justice' and that the whole process is a 'farce'.

Mustafiz writes in his capacity of a lawyer representing the Bangladesh Cricket Board

His Facebook status (at the time of writing this post) has been shared by over 13,000 people, and it has been reported by all the country's main news media (Dhaka Tribune, Daily Star etc). Mustafiz is (as everyone who knows him well knows), a highly knowledgeable cricket obsessive and so it seems appropriate that he should become newly famous for his legal analysis of a cricketing issue!

You can read his status here.

Referring to a document called the 'ICC regulations for the review of bowlers reported with suspected illegal bowling actions,' he makes three basic points.

- in the independent assessment, Taskin was only found at fault for the way he bowled bouncers, not for any other kind of deliveries bowled (i.e not for yorkers). However he did not bowl any such balls during the cricket match where he was reported by the umpires . 

- secondly, where a bowler is found to have employed an Illegal Bowling Action during the Independent Assessment in respect of a specific type of delivery only, other than his stock delivery, the Player will be allowed to continue bowling in International Cricket but subject to a warning. This he says is the situation in which Taskin finds himself since he was only found at fault due to his bouncers.

- thirdly, the preliminary report made by the match umpires, which started the whole process, was vague and possibly non-compliant with ICC regulations 

In an earlier version of this post, I had pointed to a 'note' to para 2.1.12 of the regulations which seemed to suggest that Mustafiz's analysis may be wrong. However, Mustafiz has informed me that this 'note' is no longer included in the 2015 version of these rules, and so the analysis set out in the earlier version of this post was not correct. (If you would like to see the previous version of this post, please see the end.

So - moving on from that mistake! - if we take into account the most recent version of the regulations, is Mustafiz right? The key sections of the new regulations are as follows:

Section 2.2.6 states:

"During the Independent Assessment, the Player shall be required to replicate the specic bowling action for which he/she was reported."

Section 2.2.9 then states:

"Where the Independent Assessment concludes that the Player employed an Illegal Bowling Action during the Independent Assessment, it should indicate in the Independent Assessment Report whether the Player employed an Illegal Bowling Action generally or in respect of specific type(s) of delivery only and whether, in the Appointed Specialists opinion, such conclusion is not inconsistent with the relevant video evidence. If the Independent Assessment Report indicates that the Player employed an Illegal Bowling Action in respect of specific type(s) of delivery only, it should specify which deliveries were found to be illegal and differentiate between the Player’s stock delivery and other deliveries." (emphasis added)

Then para 2.2.12 states

"In the event that the Independent Assessment concludes ... that the Player employed an Illegal Bowling Action in respect of his stock delivery during the Independent Assessment and that such conclusion is consistent with the relevant video footage ....  the Player shall immediately be suspended from bowling in International Cricket until such time as he has submitted to a further Independent Assessment." (emphasis added)

Para 2.2.13 then goes onto state:

"In circumstances where the Independent Assessment concludes that the Player employed an Illegal Bowling Action during the Independent Assessment in respect of a specific type of delivery only, other than his stock delivery, the Player will be allowed to continue bowling in International Cricket but subject to the warning that should he continue to bowl any of the speci c type(s) of delivery for which he has been found to have an Illegal Bowling Action, he will run the risk of being cited a second time." (emphasis added)

Now what this all comes down to is what is meant by a 'stock delivery' and what is meant by a 'specific type of delivery', and are bouncer deliveries considered to be part of Taskin's 'stock delivery' or are they a 'specific type of delivery'? As Mustafiz mentioned (and is clear from above) if an illegal bowling action is found relation to a stock delivery,  'suspension' will result, but if it is found in relation to a 'specific type of delivery',  only a 'warning' will result. So if a bouncer is considered to be a stock delivery then the ICC would be right to suspend Taskin, but if it is a 'specific type of delivery' then they were wrong to do so.

Unlike in the 2010 version of the policy, which provided a note which helped to explain what was a 'specific type of delivery' - where a 'bouncer' was not considered a 'specific type of delivery' - the 2015 policy does not include any clarity on the meanings of these two terms

Mustafiz says in his post:

"The Assessment did not find anything illegal with Taskin's stock and yorker deliveries."

It is not clear from Mustafiz's account what is the basis for this statement - .whether he is himself defining of what is or what is not Taskin's stock delivery, or whether, as may well be the case, the assessment report itself makes this clear.

But, if the assessment report itself states that there is nothing wrong with Taskin's 'stock' deliveries, then Mustafiz is certainly correct in his status post - and Taskin should not have been suspended.

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Old Version of post (based on 2010 policy)

However, I am afraid to say that Mustafiz's analysis may be wrong - at least in the key issue of whether he should have been warned or suspended. I know I am treading in particularly dangerous waters of Bangladesh's cricket nationalism in suggesting that - but nonetheless, for the sake of (what I think) is a better and fairer understanding of the issue, I am diving in!

Suspension or warning

Mustafizur's account fails to mention one key provision in the regulations that, unfortunately for supporters of Bangladesh cricket, does appear to make Taskin's suspension legal.

Mustafiz's crucial point in his analysis is that Taskin should at the very most be 'warned' and not suspended. In making this argument he points to section 2.2.12 which states that:

"In circumstances where the Independent Assessment concludes that the Player employed an Illegal Bowling Action during the Independent Analysis in respect of a specific type of delivery only, the Player will be allowed to continue bowling in International Cricket but subject to the warning (Warning) that should he continue to bowl any of the specific type(s) of delivery for which he has been found to have an Illegal Bowling Action, he will run the risk of being cited a second time. "

This Mustafiz argues is exactly the situation faced by Taskin - as he has only been found at fault in the independent assessment in relation to his bowling of 'bouncers' - which he is treating as a 'specific type of delivery'.

However, the ICC regulations do not consider bouncers to be a 'specific type of delivery'. There is a 'note' to this section 2.2.12 which states:

"Note: This is intended to cover the circumstances where a Player employs a different technique to deliver a specific type of delivery e.g. propelling the ball out of the back of the hand to produce a “googly” or “doosra”. It is not intended to cover the situation where the same basic technique is used to produce a different type of delivery e.g. more effort to produce a bouncer or a yorker. (emphasis added)."

This 'note' specifically deals with Taskin's situation. That is to say, a bouncer is not considered by the ICC regulations as a 'specific type of delivery' but instead part of 'the same basic technique' to produce a 'different' type of delivery.

As a result it would seem, the ICC was in fact required to suspend him - and there was no discretion on their part to warn him.

The importance of the TV footage
There is also some uncertainty about the nature of the TV footage. Mustafiz refers in his Facebook status to TV 'footage', stating that:

'The footage of his bowling in the match where he was reported is available. It 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. The Match Officials' Report from the Netherlands match did not specify any particular delivery/type of delivery. Indeed, it simply stated that they were "concerned with the legality of the action". Be that as it may, he was not reported for his bouncer.'

Now this footage is crucial. Section 2.1.5 of the ICC regulations states that:

'If the Match is a televised Match, upon receipt of the Match Officials’ Report from the Match Referee, the ICC shall arrange for three copies of the television footage of the bowling spells of the Player in the relevant Match to be produced as soon as possible. Once these tapes have been received, the ICC shall immediately write to the Player’s Home Board confirming that the Player has been reported for a suspected Illegal Bowling Action and enclosing the Match Of cials’ Report and two copies of the tape referred to above.'

And in section 2 of Annex 1 of the policy, titled 'ICC Standard Analysis Protocols', it goes onto state that: 

"The television video footage of the entire bowling spell(s) of the Player in the Match where the report was made shall be presented on a master tape. (ICC to supply Match footage. If possible, rear, frontal and lateral views of the action shall be provided.) The master tape shall be converted to 50Hz / 60Hz (standard television footage is recorded at 25Hz) to enable more accurate evaluation of the Player’s bowling action on the day the Player was actually cited. Descriptive analysis during the Match footage should compare the actions of the Players e.g. positioning of feet, angle of run up, position of the torso, velocity of arm, velocity of delivery (95% of Match speed etc). These comparisons should be clearly presented in the report."

Moreover, the ICC independent assessment is undertaken only in the context of this TV footage. In fact the ICC regulations make clear that a player can only be suspended if the Independent Assessment concludes that the Player employed an Illegal Bowling Action during the Independent Analysis, 

'and that such conclusion is not inconsistent with the relevant video footage.' (para 2.2.12)

Therefore, for the ICC to come to a conclusion to consider the suspicion of Taksin, there must have bene identifiable problems in the TV footage and in the 'descriptive analysis' of this footage. 

Mustafiz is not clear on this point whether the footage does show any concerns - he only mentions that Taskin did not bowl any bouncers and that the match official's report was vague. Clearly, if the TV footage (or descriptive analysis of the footage), do not show problems in any of Taskin's bowling deliveries, then he cannot be subsequently suspended. 

However, one must assume that the footage does in fact show legitimate concerns in relation to some of his deliveries - though not in relation to bouncers (which according to Mustafiz he did not bowl).