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Pras comes to Chauhan's defence

Rajesh Chauhan is back in the news, and fast becoming Indian cricket's cause celebre.

Former Test player Erapalli Prasanna feels not enough has been done for the off-spinner, who has been in and out of the Indian cricket team for a suspect bowling action.

Prasanna, one of the top exponents of off-spin in the world, who along with Bishen Singh Bedi and Bhagwat Chandrashekhar formed the 'spin troika' in the late 60s, says he and former England off-spinner Fred Titmus studied the video footage provided by the ICC in London and found nothing wrong with his action.

Prasanna says though he had been asked by the BCCI to accompany Chauhan to London to study his action, the BCCI and ICC did not repose any faith in him.

''All I need is two months to improve his bowling performance,'' Prasanna says. ''I and Titmus were unanimous that Chauhan's action did not violate the laws of bowling and qualify for the 'throwing' tag, which clearly states there would be no no straightening of arms before the delivery.''

He says they had suggested slight modification in his action only for his overall improvement. Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev, who observed Chauhan in New Delhi earlier, had expressed the same views.

Venkataraghavan, another great off-spinner, also had not cast any aspersion on his bowling action, Prasanna says.

Surprising, this last, since Bobby Simpson, during his stint as match referee during the India-Sri Lanka Test series late last year, had mentioned in his report to the ICC regarding Chauhan's action that the umpires who did duty during that series had questioned the off spinner's delivery style -- and one of those umpires was Venkat himself.

Earlier story: Chauhan asks BCCI for explanation; in Cricket Diary