Multiple senior Sri Lankan players had raised concerns over Matthew Kuhnemann’s bowling action after the first Test, Cricbuzz has learnt, with many in the team now left puzzled over why the match officials waited until the end of the series to report the Australian left-arm spinner. According to sources within the team, a couple of them in particular had indicated having found something “not quite right” about the way Kuhnemann was finishing his action while he starred in the first Test win with nine wickets in Galle.

This comes in the wake of the 28-year-old’s action being officially reported by the ICC with its legality now under scrutiny. Kuhnemann, who finished on top of the wicket-takers’ list with 16 wickets at 17.18, will now have to undergo independent testing within the next two weeks to be cleared to bowl again in international cricket.

However, some of the Sri Lankan batters seem to have had an issue with it as early as the latter part of the opening Test. With one of them even having approached Sri Lankan spin bowling coach Piyal Wijetunge to watch replays and analyse Kuhnemann’s action. It’s learnt that Wijetunge couldn’t find anything untoward with it and put the batter’s doubts down to the unique ‘wrist action’ used by the Aussie finger spinner.

The Sri Lankan batter in question and some of his colleagues though weren’t convinced by the spin bowling coach’s explanation and continued to raise eyebrows over some of Kuhnemann’s deliveries as the series progressed.

“They were finding it difficult to leave the crease against him, because they felt like he could adjust and make changes very late, which they found unusual. It’s not like they were questioning his action after every delivery but there were some balls which they were concerned with,” the source told Cricbuzz.

For the record, a number of Sri Lankan batters did succumb to Kuhnemann while trying to play him from their crease.

Kuhnemann is no stranger to Sri Lanka having made his ODI debut here in 2022, and then having gone on to make an impression in his maiden Test series in India the following year. And this is the first time during his eight-year professional cricket career that his action has been officially questioned. A source did admit that the Sri Lankans had not found anything out of place when they were studying Kuhnemann’s bowling videos as part of their preparation for the Test series. That it was only after they saw him bowl during the first Test in Galle that alarms were raised.

“Our focus was more on Nathan Lyon and the damage that he could cause in Galle. But we did watch a lot of Kuhnemann’s videos from his past performances, and nothing really caught our eye. There were a few deliveries through the series though that didn’t quite feel right,” revealed one of the batters.

“What we don’t understand is why the match officials, who were the same for both Tests, waited until the series was over before reporting his action,” he added.

None of this of course has any bearing on how Australia deal with the situation, with Kuhnemann’s immediate future as a bowler in international cricketer dependent on the outcome of the testing conducted by the human-movement specialist in the next two weeks.

Interestingly, the Sri Lankan spin coach’s assessment, like learnt, seemed to be along the lines of how former ace Indian spinner R Ashwin had broken down Kuhnemann’s action a couple of years ago on his YouTube show.

Ashwin had highlighted the uniqueness of the left-armer’s wrist in its loading position and why it could create an optical illusion of there being an elaborate “elbow extension”, which according to the laws of the game cannot be over 15 degrees.

“The way his wrist breaks, it will look at times like an elbow extension. But there’s nothing like that in his action. It’s more the wrist involvement,” Ashwin had said.

Cricket Australia have thrown their support behind the Queenslander, who now plies his trade in Tasmania, and will work through the process, which will involve Kuhnemann bowling at similar speeds and with similar revolutions on the ball as he would have during the second Test. The results will then show if there is an elbow extension beyond the legal 15 degrees in order to deem whether his action is legal or not in its current form.

It’s learnt that Sri Lankan cricket will wait until the results are made public before making any further statements about the issue regarding Kuhnemann’s bowling action.