I think it’s got something to do with the month of April. The two cricketers at the summit of all records were born in that month – Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar and Mutthiah Muralitharan. Today I, much like the whole world, will focus on the latter – the person who had announced a week ago that he will retire from test cricket after the first test between India and Sri Lanka.It does take courage to make such an announcement, with 8 wickets still to go towards a landmark that could forever be etched as ‘the unbreakable record’, and something the whole world wanted him to reach – 800 test wicket. But when you’re the world’s best bowler and still going great guns, I guess you’ve got enough confidence to take that decision even against purportedly the world’s best spin playing team.
Mutthiah Muralithan – 800 wickets, not a scalp less and not a scalp more. Need I say more. Period.
A cricketer who has had many mosts to his name – the most no. of test wickets, the most number of ODI wickets (from which he hasn’t yet announced his retirement, and he can only add to the tally of 515), the most no. of test wickets on a single ground (in fact, he holds the world record for the top 3 such instances – 166 at Sinhalese Sports Club Ground, Colombo; 117 at Asgiriya Stadium, Kandy; and 111 at Galle International Stadium, where he played his swansong test innings that concluded today.
Murali, also, is the first and only Tamilian to represent the Sri Lankan side, and in a country battling with radical Tamilians fighting for the cause of their own land (rightly or wrongly, I will not get into that) that is something to talk about. He has more than proved his match-winning abilities to his nation, and any side would’ve loved to have a champion like him playing for them.
It’s not just the good things that he’s achieved in cricket; he’s also been hounded by controversy the most. He is the ignominy of being the one bowler who has been called for chucking the most number of times, including by players of such reputation as Michael Holding, Adam Gilchrist, Martin Crowe, Dean Jones and Bishen Singh Bedi, who even likened him to a ‘javeline thrower’ and a ‘shot putter’. He was continually no-balled by Darrel Hair, the Australian umpire, in the Boxing Day test at Melbourne in 1995, which prompted a series of tests on him at Australia as well as Hong Kong, which finally cleared his action, and also prompted revision of rules about bending the arm while bowling.
Never one to give up in the face of adversity, Murali always came back stronger. His resoluteness is not just demonstrated in his achievements, but also in the fact that his captain could rely on him to bowl 45 overs in a day, without change, from a single end relentlessly without complaining and without giving even 1% less than what he was expected to give. It has often been said that he can spin a ball even on a glass surface, and I am sure he’s demonstrated his skills to the fullest to devastate many a batsman. 10 wickets in a match on 22 occasions out of the 133 matches that he’s played and 5 wickets in an innings on 67 occasions (including one in his very last match) from 230 innings show his class as a master beguiler, and a bowler most feared.
With his retirement, the spin era seems to have come to an end, but it is no mean feat that the world’s top 3 test bowlers are spinners, who’ve held onto their own and made the batsmen dance to their tunes – Mutthiah Muralitharan (800), Shane Warne (708) and Anil Kumble (619).
As I end this piece, I think no words are enough to pay a tribute to such a legend. All I’ll say is this – Well played Murali, and thanks for enthralling us for almost two decades.
© Shailesh Nigam, Varun Khanna (for respective articles)
