Hafeez to work on his bowling action now in England

LAHORE: All-rounder Mohammad Hafeez will fly to England next week to begin working on remodelling his bowling action, which was deemed illegal last month. This was the third time he had been suspended from bowling in three years.

The PCB announced in a press release that he was going to be assessed by biomechanical expert Dr Paul Hurrian and bowling coach Carl Crowe, who had worked successfully with Sunil Narine after his bowling action was found to be illegal. Pakistan bowling coach Azhar Mahmood will also be present for the assessments.

“After the assessment both experts will devise a remedial action plan that would be handed over to Azhar Mahmood for implementation in Pakistan,” a statement from the PCB said. “Azhar Mahmood and [a panel] comprising of Ali Zia, Sajjad Akbar, Salim Jaffer and Aleem Dar will then work with Mohammad Hafeez under the guidelines given by Paul and Carl. The committee will also perform periodical testing at the PCB’s Biomechanics lab at LUMS university in Lahore to make sure the bowling action of Hafeez is well within the allowable benchmarks before recommending that he may be sent for re-testing at any ICC accredited biomechanics lab.” Hafeez was reported for a suspect action after the third ODI against Sri Lankain Abu Dhabi in October and underwent his assessment in Loughborough last month. The assessment revealed that a majority of Hafeez’s deliveries exceeded the 15 degrees level of tolerance permitted under the ICC’s regulations.

Data on Hafeez’s action was captured for four overs’ worth of deliveries - the data that is recorded is only for those deliveries where testers are satisfied that the match action has been replicated in the lab. It is believed that less than half-a-dozen deliveries were within the 15-degree limit, even though that margins he was over by were not as big as, for example, Saeed Ajmal’s when he was suspended a few years ago.