Muttiah Muralitharan

Tendulkar v Murali

We wrote about the various World Cup storylines during the quarter-finals. The stories of Tendulkar and Murali, two ageing greats, seem to be the strongest now, but that’s mostly due to hindsight.

All the same, it makes for a good narrative. There’s also a minor subplot that no-one will care about: it’s Lancashire v Yorkshire!

We’re pretty keen for Tendulkar to win the World Cup in his home city, because that really would be a good story. Then again, he did play 16 matches for Yorkshire almost 20 years ago. Still not forgiven him for that.

Murali, by contrast, is an honorary Lancastrian having represented the county a bucketload of times. He too is one of our favourite cricketers and we’d love to see him win the World Cup in his final international match, if only to see just how much one man can smile.

Either way, it’s a lose-lose situation – that’s how we’re viewing it with our famously boundless optimism.

Muttiah Muralitharan’s 800th Test wicket

We don’t get it. It was only Pragyan Ojha. What’s the big deal?

If we’d taken 800 Test wickets, we wouldn’t be jumping up and down about getting Pragyan Ojha out. We’d have been more worked up about dismissing better batsmen, like Ian Salisbury or Chris Lewis.

Muttiah Muralitharan retirement – knee jerk reaction

We’re certainly intending to do a proper Muralitharan retirement post – possibly after his last match – but for now, we can’t be bothered. These are the things that immediately came to mind when we heard he was retiring:

1. Muttiah Muralitharan might just surpass Steve Harmison in our estimation as the finest batsman of his generation. Here’s why.
2. Murali’s bowling technique: you try it if it’s so advantageous.
3. The following Andrew Flintoff story.

Flintoff walked back into the Lancashire dressing room after getting out and everyone was staying out of his way because he was furious. Except for Murali.

Murali said: “What’s the matter, Freddie? Another crap shot, was it?”

He smiled when he said it and he got away with it. Murali and Flintoff are friends. You can’t teach good-natured cheek like that and only the tiniest fraction of the population can pull it off.

Murali’s batting

Murali’s always had a certain approach to batting.

• Have a ruddy great swing at the ball
• Miss
• Have an even bigger swing at the next one

Usually this method fails for reasons that are fairly clear even to Murali. Occasionally it doesn’t and he hits 33 off 16 balls to win a match, as happened yesterday against Bangladesh.

It’s perversely heart-warming that after 447 international matches, no-one has managed to coach even the slightest bit of batting caution or batting reason into the man. It’s even more heart-warming that he can, on occasion, be entirely vindicated in his approach, even if it’s only once every 200-or-so matches.

Muttiah Muralitharan’s 709th Test wicket

It was Paul Collingwood. We’re sure he’s delighted with the honour. Muttiah Muralitharan is now the top Test wicket-taker of all time.

Murali’s had this record before of course, but no-one playing at present seems at all likely to overtake him, so we’ll assume that on this occasion, it’ll be his record for a while.

In this third paragraph, it’s customary to raise ‘the spectre’ of throwing allegations against Murali. The accusation is that he straightens his arm as he delivers the ball – this constitutes a ‘throw’ or a ‘chuck’ which is against the laws of cricket.

Even if he hadn’t been cleared of it 12 times, surely straightening your arm if you’re a spinner only makes it more difficult to land the ball where you want it to land. Go and try it next time there’s daylight – which’ll be about March in the UK. Straightening your arm only adds another variable into the mix.

If it’s really such an advantage, then his critics should just get out there and do it themselves. They should adopt his action and skip their way to 700-and-odd Test wickets at an average of about 21. That’s another thing, besides taking more wickets than anyone else, no-one around at present with more than a couple of handfuls of wickets can rival that average.

This piece should be more positive. Here are some links to some positive Murali articles:

Muttiah Muralitharan v England – 16 wickets in a match
First-hand experiences of facing Murali
Mahela Jayawardene reveals that you can’t master Muttiah Muralitharan