Since Jeff Thomson burst onto the cricketing world in 1974, there has been a steady stream of truly fast and dangerous bowlers. What is their role in a game that needs and wants the excitement that they provide, given the questions that they pose to the sport’s commitment to being a ‘gentleman’s game’?

I must confess to being an unabashed fan of the role of the speed merchant in cricket. There is no conflict in my mind between being an honourable and respected sportsman and also using pace as a weapon to inflict fear, uncertainty and doubt in the mind of the batsman. I do not see anything unethical about intimidation as a tactic. Cricket at the highest level should be a test of all the batsman’s skills, including his character and his ability to overcome his fear.

However, the game’s rulers, in theory, disagree with me, and the Laws of the Game are quite clear. Law 42, section 6 deals with intimidation and while it is only honoured in the breach at first-class and international level, there is no doubt that the letter of the law is against me.

Beamers are another matter entirely, and that is where Brett Lee is drawing some controversy. He has an undoubted history of bowling them, and he claims that they are unintentional, merely misguided yorkers. From my own observation of him in action, I would say that is MOSTLY true.

There was one time however, when he bowled beamers that seemed pretty deliberate to me. That was in a limited overs match against Pakistan in Sydney in early 2005, when Abdul Razzaq copped a couple. However, given that Razzaq had been either silly or reckless enough to let a couple of beamers of his own at Brett Lee. Now that sort of tit-for-tat retaliation seems unworthy to me. Razzaq is a good enough batsman to deal with it, but basically, Lee was in the wrong there.

How should cricket deal with this sort of behaviour? Umpires have the power to order a repeat offender out of the attack, and this has happened. Waqar Younis had it happen to him in the first match of the 2003 World Cup against Australia, and this seems like the right balance to me. However, the problem is that umpires, in general, lack the confidence to do this often enough. So to me, the solution to an excess of beamers in cricket is to bolster the confidence of the umpire’s fraternity.

Good piece, Scott.

I agree, don't think Lee's beamers are intentional, pretty much most of them anyway.

The problem with policing beamers is always going to be that it will be a subjective ruling by the umpire because the only person who knows the level of intent is the bowler.

How many is too many? 1, 2...3 per innings. Lee gets away with it because of his pace, there will always be an argument (although not neccesarily a valid one) to suggest that when you are "express", accuracy suffers.

Any change to the laws should define a process, similar say to running on the pitch. One=warning, two=final warning, 3=yourouttahere!

The umpire at the bowlers end should be able to tell if a bowler is bowling beamers on purpose or not. If there is moisture and dew on the outfield and the ball gets a little greasy then the bowler should be given the benefit of the doubt, if the conditions are bone dry then the excuse"it slipped, ump!" rings a little false, anyone who has bowled 10 overs regularly for many years knows that there are no accidents in bowling(except bowling down the leg-side!!) when batting, 95% of the beamers I faced were done on purpose. Another good excuse to tell the umpire is Wasim's" I was aiming for the top of the stumps, Ump!!" As an opening bowler myself, I was only medium-fast, so beamers were useless and I never bowled them, but you can bet your bottom dollar that had I been a lot faster and could unsettle batsmen with pace rather than rely on swing, I would have bowled Beamers on more than a few occasions( and then put my hand up straight away in a "sorry" gesture!)

On the subject, I didn't get to watch Shoaib's beamer to Dhoni in the 2nd test, did it seem unintentional or intentional? Shoaib a/c to Dhoni did not apologise afterwards(which he should have IMO).

It was intentional and it was bowled from around the wicket.

beamer is an unhealthy bowling line.if the bowler does it unintentionally we can easily read it from his face he wud sincerely apologise for it.only 1 warning ned to be given and second time if the bowler bowls a beamer he shud be stopped of attack.