Whilst indulging ourselves with the obligatory 'post-training' pint at our local cricket club one night recently, the conversation turned to the current ODI series against Sri Lanka. One of the party, his memory jogged by the mention of Sri Lanka, then passed me his mobile to show me the Twitter exchange between two of my family members; brother Alan and nephew Mark.

My brother’s first tweet didn't hold back. He had opined that "allowing bowlers with suspect actions (throwing) was having as much of a negative impact on international cricket as match fixing.” The bowler now in question, Sri Lankan off-spinner Sachithra Senanayake is, shall we say … borderline. Alan would have assumed that such a comment would open up a can of worms and he was right; the tweets that came back, however, caught him a little by surprise. "You racist pig," was one. Another suggested that the colour of the bowler's skin had had a major part to play in Alan's observations that, as he believes, the spinner’s action is not, at all times, legal.

I had no need to read any further; sitting firmly on my ‘high horse’, I took off into battle. This was not a battle to be waged against the tweeters who had made such ill-judged responses to my brother’s remark for, after all, they are expressing their own personal opinion (even though I would have preferred to have seen something a little more deep and meaningful than "racist pig"). No, my battle is about anybody's right to speak out about a bent or straightening arm without being branded a cricketing dinosaur. The notion that the pigmentation of the bent arm prompted Alan's comment is, quite frankly, laughable.

Muttiah Muralitharan, the highly successful Sri Lankan spinner, polarised views as a player and continues to shape the modern game. Is he, however, shaping the game for the better? The current rule, as I understand it, is that for a delivery to be legal there must not be an arm flexion of more than 15 degrees. Many scientific, bio-mechanical tests were conducted on Murali over the years, and the findings suggested that he had an arm flexion of … 14 degrees … .

WOW - call me cynical but how lucky was that for the cricketing authorities? Two degrees more and the 500 test wickets already accumulated by the mercurial Sri Lankan spinner would have had to be wiped from the record books.

And unless Murali was prepared to change his action, he may never have bowled another ball in international cricket. A cynic would suggest that neither of those outcomes were going to be allowed to happen. So, 15 degrees it was. Murali went on to take 800 test wickets and everybody was happy. Unfortunately, though, not everybody was happy...me included.

And the ICC's legacy on this subject? Well, it is highly probable that Murali's record of 800 test victims will remain a record. My ‘high horse’ is now rearing up on its hind legs ready for that final charge, because, in my humble opinion, many, many of those dismissals were achieved with an illegal action.

I mentioned earlier that I believe that Murali's legacy is still shaping the game today. To help put flesh on the bones of this argument, I refer you to an article I wrote about the sledging debate surrounding the recent Ashes series in Australia. I wrote that the antics involving Mitchell Johnson, Jimmy Anderson, Michael Clarke et al could have a detrimental effect on the game lower down the pecking order, namely school and club cricket. I believe that we have the same problem with the ‘chucking’ debate.

How on Earth is the club, school or colts coach, going to say with any certainty that a bowler's arm has a flexion of 10, 12, 15 or more degrees? Answer: they can't, and they are hung out to dry by the various leagues and their governing bodies because there are no testing places, nowhere where a definitive answer can be given to the question: "does this particular bowler chuck it?" and, "Is he over the magically-arrived-at 15 degree mark?" Because there is no course of redress, an umpire or coach is left with no option but to allow a dubious delivery to stand, no matter what.

So what situation have we arrived at in 2014? I'll tell you. We are left with a situation where coaches are now beginning to talk seriously about teaching youngsters to bowl with a bent arm. To coach them how to bowl a ‘mystery ball’. There is no mystery here: for it's far easier to impart exaggerated spin, or bowl a ‘doosra’ with a bent arm. Mystery over...and not a sign of Inspector Morse anywhere.

Have we really reached the point where coaches will seriously consider doing this? I'm afraid so, and my fear is that it could have a hugely detrimental effect on cricket around the world, at all levels.

Cricket lovers, fellow coaches: we all know what a throw looks like. Please project yourself forward ten years. Tell me, when you are strolling around the boundary of your local cricket club, village green or community park, do you want to see an increasingly large number of bowlers propelling the ball with a bent arm, bowling with exaggerated pace or spin? Because if we continue down this route, that's exactly how we will end up. And the game, of course, will be the worse for it.

Finally, to the tweeters who accused my brother of being a "racist pig", I say do your homework on him. Have a look at his life and his background; you may be surprised about what you learn. Or, if you care to, buy a copy of his soon-to-be-released book about his time as National Coach to the Zimbabwe cricket team. Act on either of those suggestions, or indeed both, and maybe, just maybe, you will see that the man actually cares about the future of the game of cricket and not about the colour of anybody's skin.