I didn't think so. Tait's action isn't much different to how it was and his injuries have largely been due to the enormous strain put on his shoulder by his action. Graham Dilley's action is seemingly all lower-back and the twisting of his back at the point where he's bringing his arm over to bowl always makes me wince with pain.
When you watch Dilley bowl actually at the ground from side-on his arm action is completely smooth. The apparent pause at the top of his delivery is not there at all. The late Fred Trueman commented on it during a TMS phone-in in the early 80's when a listener asked for Fred's opinion on the Dilley action.
When you watched him bowl from the batsman's perspective, however, he was an altogether more befuddling proposition. I spoke recently to someone who had the pleasure of cracking him through the covers a few times and learnt that, early on in one's innings, it was neigh-impossible to tell when the ball was going to come.
Yup. He had a wierd test career actually - made a reasonable start against Aus & WI from 1979 to mid-1981, but was dropped after Headingley 1981 as he was bang out of form. Thereafter, we barely saw him until 1986, despite losing a batch of quicks to Boycott's SA tour and England calling up all sorts of no-hopers. I don't know whether that was due to injury or ongoing lack of form.
Completely changed his run-up to a long, curved Marshall-esque variety in an attempt to get more side on at crease and closer to stumps at point of delivery
A game which he played a massive role in winning.
I remember reading somewhere (possibly "500 to 1") that Dilley's confidence with the ball was so shot that he was happy to make way. That's all very well so long as there's some quality out there to replace him with. Instead, we saw Paul Allott in the side later that summer and 12 - 18 months later, with Lever, Hendrick & Old all banned, the likes of Pringle, Ian Greig, Jackman and Cowans were all being tried.
