“We had a young player come into the side once, keen boy, very enthusiastic and played pretty well. During an interval he remarked on the bowling action of one of the opposition. “I really think this bloke throws it. Do you think we should say something?”

“Keep your mouth shut,” he was told, “otherwise they might ban him.” This is the thing about chuckers: no one really minds too much as long as they don’t do any damage, but the minute they become of consequence, then people start to sit up and take notice.

There has always appeared to be a sort of inverse law when it comes to dealing with this, which seems to state the higher the profile of the alleged offender, the less likely he is to get nailed, particularly when it comes to pace bowlers.

The ICC clearly has a mandate now to clamp down on illegal actions and earlier in the year there were four actions scrutinised and found wanting. Shane Shillingford, the West Indies spinner, has been suspended and reintegrated several times since his international debut in 2010, and has been cleared again on condition he does not bowl his doosra.

No one is that bothered about Marlon Samuels, providing they are not in receipt of his quick ball, which he pings with some rapidity. Kane Williamson almost bowled New Zealand to a win over England in Auckland and it was obvious he threw it, but again, he did not matter that much. The Sri Lankan Sachithra Senanayake was more dangerous, and England did make a fuss, now shown to be with justification (although they caught the wrath of a scorned Sri Lanka team). Just this week the Bangladeshi pace bowler Al-Amin Hossain was reported following his team’s first Test against West Indies.

But Saeed Ajmal is in a different league. We are talking here about the most successful spin bowler since the retirement of Muttiah Muralitharan. He is the highest ranked ODI bowler and in the top 10 in Test cricket, and as such one of the most significant cricketers of his time. His action has been queried in the past but testing procedures were not as stringent or sophisticated as they are now.

Although most close observers of the game would have perceived something odd at times in his delivery, with finger pointed generally at the doosra – the usual culprit – no one surely could have foreseen the findings that emerged from the National Cricket centre in Brisbane, where he underwent testing.

Under conditions in which he might at least be expected to try to conceal things as best he could, it was discovered not only did he throw every delivery in the course of eight overs, but he did so by a huge margin, up to 40 degrees of flex which is getting on for three times the legal limit of 15 degrees (this is not the angle of the arm but the extent it alters in delivery).

It is worth printing the full summation of this, made public by the Pakistan Cricket Board. First over off-spin over the wicket: average elbow extension 39 degrees; second over off-spin over the wicket: 37 degrees; third over off-spin around the wicket: 41 degrees; fourth over off-spin around the wicket (wide of the crease): 41 degrees; fifth over off-spin around the wicket: 42 degrees; sixth over doosra around the wicket: 40 degrees; seventh over quicker balls around the wicket: 38 degrees; eighth over quicker balls over the wicket: 42 degrees. There is standard deviation of 2.5 degrees.

It led to the PCB chairman Shararyar Khan to say that they “have a challenge to do the remedial work”. He can say that again.

Under the circumstances, Ajmal himself seems remarkably chipper, believing that an accident to his arm has caused the anomaly and once his medical report is scrutinised, it will be fine. This seems to me to be optimistic in the extreme: a fellow whose bowling transgresses to such a remarkable degree seriously believes a bit of tinkering will put things right.

So a headline in Monday’s Sydney Morning Herald raised an eyebrow – “Saeed Ajmal targets World Cup heroics after straightening out bowling action”. With one bound he was free? Not so. He is hoping to target World Cup heroics if only he can straighten it out, which is not quite the same thing.

If his defence is he cannot help it because of a medical condition (the testers said that there was no general evidence of hypermobility in his action) then it is hard to see how he can change. And if not, he needs to say why he persisted in throwing the ball in the first place.

“They are yet to consider my medical reports,” he added, “and once they do I am sure there will not be a problem. If one has a medical problem then what can I do?” Sadly, in his case, with zero tolerance the ICC imperative now, it seems, the answer must be not to play. That is just the way it is.