Ramadhin, who took 158 Test wickets for the West Indies, told the Daily Mail yesterday that he threw rather than bowled his faster delivery and was allowed to get away with it. "It's about time I got it off my conscience,'' he said.

Ramadhin said he concealed the throwing action as best he could by keeping his shirt sleeve buttoned at the wrist. That meant that any bending of the elbow, which is against the rules and turns the delivery into a throw, would be difficult to spot.

``Nowadays, the television cameras would have picked it up immediately...But I got away with it in every grade of cricket for 30 years,'' he said.Ramadhin, who at 5-feet-4 was a short man even by cricketing standards, said, "There was no way somebody of my build could have produced my faster ball without throwingit.''

The 69-year-old came clean as he weighed into the increasing debate on the action of Sri Lanka's spin bowler Muttiah Muralitharan. Muralitharan was called for throwing in a recent limited-overs series in Australia, the umpiring decision reopening speculation over his action that started on Sri Lanka's previous tour to Australia.

The Sri Lankan has been cleared of "chucking" by the International Cricket Council in the past, based on medical evidence of a physical deformity, but he will come under increased scrutiny when the cricket World Cup starts in England on May 14.