Murali undergoes Tests to convince Australian crowds

Muttiah Muralitharan has undergone another round of Tests at the University of Western Australia (UWA) to prove to the Australian crowds that his action is legitimate.

"I've have gone to tests again ... and still people are trying to bully me in a way," said Murali. "Every time I bowl they shout it from the grounds, every time I go near the boundary line they say things, that means they are not accepting me. Sometimes you feel 'Why do you want to come and play?'"

The latest tests were done after local media reports suggested that Murali's action was again under question because he was bowling more than 20kmph faster than when he was last tested at UWA. The tests showed that Murali's average elbow extension while bowling the doosra at 86.5 kmph was 12.2 degrees and for the offbreak it was 12.9 degrees at 95 kmph, well within the stipulated ICC limit of 15 degrees.

"There's nothing more he could do," said Bruce Elliot, a UWA scientist. "The latest testing shows, irrespective of whether he's bowling a doosra or an off-break, all his deliveries were under 15 degrees, so none were illegal." He said Muralitharan was bowling faster because of a shoulder surgery he underwent in 2004.

Since he was first no-balled during the Boxing Day Test at Melbourne in 1995, Muralitharan's action has been scrutinised and given the go-ahead four times by the UWA but the taunting at grounds across Australia have continued. He was unofficially reprimanded for making a gesture at a spectator who had painted his face black and had `no-ball' written on his chest at Perth on January 31. "It happens mostly, you could say 99 percent in Australia rather than any other country I have been to," he said. "Every country ... England, South Africa, everywhere, people respect me. They enjoy my bowling and they enjoy the cricket. Here I don't know what's happening."