Oct 16 2009
Powers Past Yet Another Milestone
It had to happen almost as inevitably as the sun rises in the east. Surely it was only a matter of time before Muthiah Muralitharan overtook Shane Warne and perched himself firmly at the top of the wicket taker’s table in Test cricket. And as Warne himself has said while paying tribute to his great contemporary it is a record that could well stand for all time. Yes, records are meant to be broken but some - like Bradman’s and Murali’s - will stand the test of time. With no one looking even remotely capable of approaching the figure of 700 wickets Murali, still very much active, is going to set the standards for future generations. If at all, it is going to be challenged only by some young bowler just starting out and who will enjoy a long and lucrative career.
A supremely confident Murali has spoken of being the first to get 1000 Test wickets. While that may be stretching it a bit too far even for someone with Murali’s magical and mesmeric qualities he certainly should be the first to reach 800 wickets. After that he will take it as it comes.
On sheer wicket taking ability and the manner in which he makes ball do astonishing things Murali qualifies as one of the greatest spin bowlers in the game’s history, the greatest Sri Lankan cricketer ever and the first choice for the spin bowler’s slot in the all time greatest Asian XI. Honours such as the Wisden cricketer of the year 1999 and Wisden leading cricketer of the year 2006 sit lightly on the shoulders of this mild mannered and unassuming sportsman. The soft-spoken Murali has never forgotten his humble beginnings being the son of a confectioner from the hill town of Kandy. This level headed approach is certainly one reason behind his amazing success and to his prodigious gifts he has added a lot of hard work, dedication, determination, concentration and the willingness to always keep learning.
Unfortunately Murali has attracted a lot of attention not only for his extraordinary bowling skills and his ability to take wickets by the bucketful but for his bent elbow action. This is always going to be the subject of controversy just as it has followed him during his 15-year-old international career. The turn that Murali is able to extract on any surface is unbelievable. The cynics argue that this is linked to his doubtful action. The affable Murali has long since put all the controversy behind him and has just concentrated on regaining the numero uno spot.
Indeed one must give him credit for taking all the barbed comments, the open criticism and a major controversy in his stride. Unmindful of all this Murali has continued to do what he likes best - bowling and taking wickets. He loves long spells, loves experimenting and attacking and loves making batsman like clown in a circus. The variety in his bowling armoury is infinite - the orthodox off break, the one that goes the other way or the one that zips straight through and so much else all with no apparent change in his action and with the ball spinning like a top.
I suppose when you talk of Murali you can’t ignore the ballyhoo surrounding the bent elbow. But then one cannot also ignore something else too that is always going to be associated with his name – the mesmeric statistics. The figures tell us that he has taken 719 wickets in 117 Tests at a shade under 22 apiece. That’s just over six wickets per Test and that’s something that is beyond any spin bowler in Test history. Indeed as a spinner he compares favourably with the legends in the game. On figures alone he is not a whit behind the likes of Johnny Briggs, Bobby Peel, Colin Blythe, Clarrie Grimmett, Jim Laker and his great contemporary Shane Warne. His predecessors enjoyed the advantage of bowling on uncovered wickets. Also about a hundred years ago the pitches were a far cry from the modern surfaces that are generally excellent batting surfaces. That might possibly explain the almost ridiculously impressive average of Briggs, Blythe and Peel over a much shorter career. This takes nothing away from the bowling skills of the peerless England left arm spinners of the time. The fact remains however that Murali has had to bowl on surfaces that are more favourable to batsmen though of course the detractors might be quick to point out that he has taken as many as 163 wickets in 23 Tests against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. But he also averages under 20 against England and West Indies and the figure against South Africa, Pakistan and New Zealand is in the early twenties. Only against India and Australia is his average in the thirties. But he still has managed 4-1/2 wickets per Test against these two teams.
Murali was the first bowler to take 1000 international wickets. On the eve of the final Test against England at Galle his tally is 719 in Test cricket and 455 in ODIs. But then special moments have not been uncommon for this conjurer who has the ability to make the ball talk, to make the ball do things in a manner that few spinners in the game’s history have been capable of. And yet success did not come to him overnight. He made his Test debut against Australia at Colombo in 1992-93 and for some years it was a bit of an uphill climb. Then his unusual action attracted a lot of adverse attention from umpires, players and administrators. Suspicions were whispered soon after his debut but he first attracted worldwide attention when he was no balled in Australia during the 1995-96 tour, first in the Boxing Day Test at Melbourne by Darrel Hair and later in the one-day series that followed. In his autobiography Hair called Murali’s action ‘diabolical’ a
view shared by quite a few including former classical left arm spin bowler Bishen Singh Bedi who has been one of Murali’s most vehement critics and has derisively commented “why his doosra, he chucks even his pehla.’’
Murali was cleared by the ICC after biomechanical analysis at the University of Western Australia and at the University of Hong Kong in 1996. They concluded that his action created the ‘optical illusion of throwing’. But the controversy did not die away. He was called again on the 1998-99 tour of Australia, this time by Ross Emerson. Murali was sent for further tests in Perth and England and was cleared again. However, his trying to perfect the ‘doosra’ prompted further suspicion and at the end of a three-match home series against Australia in March 2004 he was reported by ICC match referee Chris Broad. More high-tech tests followed, and ultimately forced the ICC to seriously look into the entire issue of throwing in international cricket, which revealed that many bowlers bend their arms during delivery, and that Murali might have been made an unfair victim.
It is unlikely that Murali’s career will be controversy-free, something he readily accepts. The rapid progress of technology and sports science over the past decade has somewhat salvaged his reputation and having recovered from a shoulder surgery kept him out of the game for a few months in 2004, Murali made it clear that he intended to add to his already burgeoning tally. Events since then have underlined the fact that he has not lost his zest for the game, his hunger for taking wickets and his rage for perfection in the development of the ‘doosra’ which is now arguably the most menacing weapon in his armoury. Forever experimenting Murali’s newest variation is a version of Warne’s slider, which is flicked out from the side of the hand and rushes onto the batsman like a flipper. His super flexible wrist makes him especially potent and guarantees him copious turn on any surface. Indeed Murali is nothing short of a magician in the tradition of the
greatest spin bowlers. He may unwittingly have been the most controversial cricketer of the modern age but he is also a true artist. He has also been a one-man demolition squad. The great thing about him is that despite bowling marathon spells and having sent down over 39,000 deliveries in Test cricket his tricks are yet unfathomable for many batsmen.
Murali may not be a classical off spinner and his action is never going to satisfy the purists. But the things that ball does once it has left his hand! They say seeing is believing but even when one sees Murali send down one of his magical deliveries it is hardly believable. The ball makes its sinuous flight, the hapless batsman is not sure when it will land, where it will land and by the time he has decided he is in no frame of mind at all, no position to play a shot and in all probability he will expose his stumps to be bowled, he will be in no man’s land to be palpably leg before or he will be the easiest stumping victim. A hesitant prod could mean a catch to short leg or slip depending on whether the ball is a big off break or a “doosra’’. If there is a desperate swipe then there is a fielder in the country to complete the catch. There are so many ways Murali can dismiss a batsman!
Oh yes, whichever way one judges Murali’s figures there are mighty impressive. And the record could not be in the hands of a nicer man. Let’s hear it from his teammate Kumar Sangakkara. “The great thing about Murali is that he is not only one of the most skilful bowlers that has ever graced the game but also the greatest human being I have ever had the privilege of knowing. He is simple, down-to-earth, polite, honest and a great humanitarian.’’
