For­mer West In­dies leg­endary fast bowler Curt­ly Am­brose says that T&T off-spin­ner Sunil Nar­ine can rise above his strug­gles in light of be­ing re­port­ed by In­di­an Pre­mier League (IPL) um­pires for a sus­pect bowl­ing ac­tion.

It's the sec­ond time in a month that Nar­ine has been re­port­ed by um­pires for a sus­pect ac­tion as this was al­so done by re­gion­al um­pires af­ter four rounds of the Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) T20 tour­na­ment which end­ed on Sep­tem­ber 10 here in T&T.

“A sus­pect­ed il­le­gal bowl­ing ac­tion re­port has been filed by the match of­fi­cials on cer­tain de­liv­er­ies bowled by Sunil Nar­ine of Kolkata Knight Rid­ers dur­ing the Pep­si IPL 2015 match be­tween Sun­ris­ers Hy­der­abad and Kolkata Knight Rid­ers played on the 22nd of April, 2015 in Visakha­p­at­nam,” Board of Con­trol for Crick­et in In­dia sec­re­tary Anurag Thakur said in a press re­lease.

“As per the pro­vi­sions of the IPL Sus­pect­ed Il­le­gal Bowl­ing Ac­tion Pol­i­cy, Nar­ine will still be el­i­gi­ble to bowl in forth­com­ing Pep­si IPL match­es and may re­quest a bio­me­chan­i­cal analy­sis of the de­liv­er­ies in ques­tion at the ICC and BC­CI ac­cred­it­ed test­ing fa­cil­i­ty, the Sri Ra­machan­dra Arthroscopy and Sports Sci­ence Cen­tre (SRASSC) in Chen­nai,” Thakur said.

While Nar­ine, who got a go-ahead to play in the IPL af­ter get­ting clear­ance for his sus­pect ac­tion from the Chen­nai Bio-Me­chan­i­cal test­ing cen­tre, he will again have to un­der­go tests even though he will be al­lowed to bowl in IPL.

How­ev­er, as per ICC rules, an­oth­er sim­i­lar of­fence will in­vite a straight one-year ban for the West In­dies spin­ner, whose “doos­ra” and “car­rom ball” both have been un­der the scan­ner for the un­usu­al ac­tion with which he de­liv­ers them.

Am­brose speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia Sports on Sun­day said he thinks that he will not be as ef­fec­tive for the re­main­der of his IPL. "It is not go­ing to be easy for him, as he will be un­der tremen­dous pres­sure. Giv­en the fact that he has got­ten this call, he will not be as ef­fec­tive for the re­main­der of the games as this cloud hangs over him."

Am­brose who claimed 405 Test wick­ets for the West In­dies at a miser­ly 20.99 added though that Nar­ine can rise above all this. "Nar­ine must re­mem­ber that he is a qual­i­ty bowler and can rise above this."

The 57-year-old An­tiguan leg­end said that the man­age­ment at KKR should con­sid­er giv­ing him a rest for a game or two. "He will be un­der great pres­sure and scruti­ny the next time he goes out there to bowl, so I think that the man­age­ment should con­sid­er giv­ing him a rest for a game or two. Let him just get a chance to take the pres­sure off, re­lax, calm his mind be­fore he re­turns. If he gets in there right now it could make it worse."

An­oth­er for­mer West In­dies play­er Phi­lo Wal­lace ad­vised that Nar­ine has to re­main men­tal­ly strong at this point in time. "It is heartwrench­ing that Nar­ine has been called again. At this point in time, he has to be men­tal­ly strong to get through this. He has to un­der­stand that he will get the full sup­port from the KKR and al­so the West In­die Board."

Wal­lace, who made his Test de­but in 1997, and record­ed a ca­reer Test-best of 92 for the West In­dies dur­ing his ca­reer added: "KKR needs to pull him from the at­tack and let him get his mind back in­to the task. They al­so need to have some­one work with him on his ac­tion and then al­low him to go back in­to the com­pe­ti­tion.

"I think this re­port from the um­pires will set him back in terms of his re-en­try in­to in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et. He has shown a keen in­ter­est in rep­re­sent­ing the West In­dies again and this must be a set­back.

Nar­ine, who plays for Queen's Park Crick­et Club, start­ed hav­ing chal­lengers with his bowl­ing back to 2014.

The 32-year-old, right-arm off-break bowler, was re­port­ed twice in the Cham­pi­ons League 2014 tour­na­ment and missed the 2015 World Cup to work on his ac­tion. He was re­port­ed dur­ing the 2015 IPL as well and was even­tu­al­ly sus­pend­ed from bowl­ing in No­vem­ber that year. The In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil cleared his ac­tion in April 2016 but he had to pull out of the T20 World Cup in In­dia that year. In March 2018, he was re­port­ed again dur­ing the Pak­istan Su­per League.