Lahore biomechanical lab receives ICC accreditation as testing centre for suspected illegal bowling actions

Karachi: The International Cricket Council (ICC) has accredited a Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) run biomechanics lab in Lahore. The ICC accredited the biomechanics lab as a testing centre for players with suspected bowling actions, the PCB  confirmed on Wednesday. The lab is run at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (Lums) and becomes the fifth biomechanics lab to be approved by the cricket’s governing body. [caption id=“attachment_6073551” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] The lab was completed during the tenure of Shaharyar Khan as Chairman of the PCB in 2015-16 after number of Pakistani players were reported for illegal bowling actions. These included off-spinner Saeed Ajmal, allrounder Muhammad Hafeez and Shoaib Malik while in the past fast bowlers Shoaib Akhtar, Shabbir Ahmed and Riaz Afridi and flamboyant leg-spinner Shahid Afridi have also been reported for their actions. Since champion spinner Ajmal was reported in 2014, other bowlers have also faced problems at the domestic level including off-spinner Bilal Asif. “I want to congratulate the Pakistan Cricket Board, which worked in conjunction with Lums to fulfill the criteria required for an ICC accredited testing centre, ICC general manager Geoff Allardice said. The ICC assisted in establishing the lab by providing a full set of testing equipment and software like it did with the other accredited centres. The facility at Lums passed through a range of criteria that included a motion analysis system with a minimum of 12 high-speed cameras capable of producing three dimensional data. The National Cricket Centre in Brisbane, Loughborough University, Sri Ramachandra University in Chennai and the University of Pretoria are the other centres where players reported in international cricket are being tested.