Paying Homage to the Spin Wizard, Muttiah Muralitharan
On Saturday evening at the conclusion of India’s brilliant World Cup victory, Sri Lankan champion Muttiah Muralitharan retired from international cricket. Muttiah Muralitharan is known as the father of Sri Lankan cricket. He is hailed as one of the great Sri Lankans, if not the iconic Sri Lankan of all time. He was given the honor of having his own postal stamp when he finally broke Shane Warne’s world record of 708 wickets.
Despite being born into Sri Lankan Tamil ethnic group (a minority who have a long history of sufferance on the isle of Ceylon) Murali has charmed spectators, teammates and dignitaries alike at home and abroad with his gentle nature and is seen as an affable ambassador for the Sri Lankan nation wherever he goes.
Altogether Muttiah has taken 1346 international wickets across all three forms of the game, including world records in Tests (800) ODIs (534). He and Mahela Jayawardene also hold the record for dismissal for a fieldsman bowler combination, Jayawardene having pocketed 67 catches from the bowling of Murali.
Muralitharan was a wonderfully adept fieldsman himself, as he took ………….. catches in 133 Tests.
So let us have a look back at the career of this stellar spinner. Born in Kandy, 17th April 1972, his father Muttiah owned a biscuit factory. He attended St. Anthony’s College where he snared a record 128 wickets in the Pure Beverages Under-19 Championship.
Muralitharan made his Test cricket debut against Australia in Colombo on the 28th of August 1992. He gave a magnificent display of the stamina he was to show for the rest of his career, taking 1/32 and 2/109 from a mammoth 51 overs, conceding just 2.7 an over. He made his ODI debut against India a year later on the 12th of August 1993.
Just 2 weeks later, Muttiah captured the first of an incredible 67 five wicket hauls against South Africa in Moratuwa, capturing 5/104 from 39 overs. He followed this up with a second bag of five wickets in the next Test in Colombo, taking 5/101 from a stunning 54 overs at a mere 1.87 runs an over. Murali’s next five wicket haul was slightly more expensive in a losing cause at the K.D. Singh Babu Stadium, Lucknow against India.
But for many, the moment when he first showed what a true champion wicket taker he was, was during Sri Lanka’s first Test victory away from home when he bamboozled the Kiwis, taking 5/64 from 39 overs at a run rate of just 1.7.
Murali’s success came to a grinding halt when in the Boxing Day Test of 1995 in Melbourne; he was no-balled 7 times by Australian umpire Darrel Hair. For the first time of many, his action was brought into question. His action was tested at the University of Western Australia and subsequently the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 1996.
During the same year Muttiah was able to get the last laugh against the Aussies, taking 1/31 in their World Cup Final victory over them. His Antipodean rival, Shane Warne (who was labelled as “media myth” in the lead up to the final) went for 0/58 from his allotted 10 overs.
Murali became the first Sri Lankan to snare 100 Test wickets when he had New Zealand’s Stephen Fleming bowled for 27 in the second Test of 1998. It was not long before he achieved his best Test figures of 16/220 at the Oval on the 27th of August 1998. He bowled an incredible 113.5 overs and he conceded just 1.9 an over as Sri Lanka won for the first time in England.
Further significant hauls from Muttiah (5/71 from 38 overs at 1.86) followed against Australia in Galle when Sri Lanka notched their first Test series win against the Aussies in 1999.
Muralitharan had a fantastic time against the South Africans in 2000, when he snared 13/171 from 71 overs at 2.25 an over in Galle, before bagging 5/68 (fromy 45.5 overs at just 1.48 runs per over) in the drawn Test in Colombo. When it came time for the return series in South Africa, Murali was in full swing, taking match figures of11/161 in Kingsmead.
Yet Murali hit his peak in 2001/02 when he took 23 wickets at home against the Indians (including of 5/49 in Galle and innings figures of 8/87 in Colombo) as Sri Lanka romped to a 2-1 victory.
The West Indies were the next to face the chopping block, as Muttiah took 21 wickets in just 2 Tests, including match figures of 11/170 from 84.7 overs in Galle and innings figures of 6/81 in Kandy.
Although a major bone of contention for his critics has been the amount of wickets he has snared against minnows Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, his figures against Zimbabwe in the Kandy Test of 2002 are enough to impress anybody, as he snared all nine wickets that fell on the first day. Were it not for a dropped catch on the first ball of the second morning he would have finished with the best innings analysis in Test history- 10/49. As it was, Murali took 30 wickets in the three match series at a meagre average of 9.80.
Muttiah took 10/98 against Bangladesh at the P.S.S Stadium in Colombo, 21 July 2002 and then snared 5/49 against the New Zealanders in Kandy, 3rd May 2003, conceding just 1.49 from 39 overs. Follwing this was a stunning 7/46 at 1.45 an over against England which included the wickets of Paul Collingwood, Marcus Trescothick, Michael Vaughan, Andrew Flintoff, Chris Read, Ashley Giles and Richard Johnson.
Murali then guided Sri Lanka to the World Cup Semi Finals in 2003 before they were knocked out of the tournament by eventual winners Australia.
Soon the race to reach 500 wickets was on between Murali and arch-rival Shane Warne when the Australians came to town in 2004. Australia claimed the series 3/0 and Warne reached the milestone first, but Murali was still brilliant, taking 3 five wicket hauls in the series.
Muttiah chose not to tour Australia in the return series later that year after Australian Prime Minister John Howard was alleged to have called him a chucker. But he had the last laugh again, overtaking Courtney Walsh’s record total of 519 wickets when he had Zimbabwe’s Mluleki Nkala caught by Mahela Jayawdene, as so many other wickets had been.
Muttiah enjoyed two outstanding years in 2005 and 2006, at the culmination of which he was awarded the Wisden Leading Cricketer of the Year award for 2006. It began with an incredible 6/36 against the West Indies at the SSC in Colombo. He then snared 8/46 against the same opponents in Kandy.
Bangladesh were the next to fall victim, as Murali bagged a startling 6/18 in Colombo and conceding just 1.68 from 10 .4 overs. Murali’s next success, this time in a losing cause (7/100 v India in Delhi) was famous for a delivery akin to Shane Warne’s ball of the century, as a spitting doosra ripped into M.S Dhoni’s off stump.
Following two easy victories on Bengali soil, Murali shone with the ball in two losing causes against Pakistan (5/39, Kandy) and England (6/86, Birmingham.) But his luck changed for the better when he snared 8/70 from 30 overs in Edgbaston, conceding just 2.33 per over.
Muralidaran then put in an outstanding performance in Sri Lanka’s home series against South Africa, taking 6/131 in the first Test in Colombo and following that with match figures of 12/225 from 80 overs conceding 2.8 an over, expensive by HIS impeccable standards.
Murali returned to New Zealand and snared 6/87 and the wickets of Craig Cumming, Matthew Sinclair, Nathan Astle, Brendon McCullum, Daniel Vettori, and James Franklin, each scalp that of a recognised batsman.
Muttiah was brilliant in Sri Lanka’s 2007 World Cup campaign. His standout performance came on the big stage against New Zealand in the Semi-Final. Chasing a victory target of 290, the Kiwis were in cruise control at 2/105 before Dilshan claimed the key wicket of Scott Styris. Murali then removed Jacob Oram, Brendon McCullum and Daniel Vettori in quick succession to reduce New Zealand to 7/116, before finishing with 4/31 to guide Sri Lanka into the finals, where they lost to Australia in farcical circumstances as pitch-black darkness descended upon the final few overs of the rain-affected match, making it impossible to even see the ball.
It took Murali just 15 overs to tear apart Bangladesh with 5/15 at the S.S.C, Colombo, before he took equally impressive match figures of 12/82 in the Kandy Test (at the mere run rate of 2.3 an over from 35 overs) of the same series and in doing so became only the second man to pick up 700 Test wickets.
Kandy was again the ground in which Murali would create history when he clean bowled Paul Collingwood for 45 to overtake Shane Warne’s world record tally of 708 wickets. “Colly’s” wicket was just 1 of 6 others (including Michael Vaughan, Ian Bell, Kevin Pietersen, Ravi Bopara and Matthew Hoggard) Murali claimed during that innings. He helped Sri Lanka secure a draw in the following Test in Colombo, again snaring the scalps of Vaughan and Bell in his 5/116 from 47 overs, as the Englishmen were able to pick off only 2.45 runs an over.
Muttiah again showed his class to the star-studded Indian batting line up when he claimed match figures of 11/110 (snaring the priceless scalp of Indian maestro Sachin Tendulkar in both innings) in the same historic Test in which “mystery spinner” Ajantha Mendis would also make his debut, his 8/132 the best figures for a Sri Lankan bowler on their Test debut.
Muralidaran was again stunning on Bengali soil when he took 6/49 from 22 overs in Mirpur, Dhaka. Although the records show there was a long period between that particular five wicket haul and his next bag of five wickets, nothing can take away from the significance of that penultimate five wicket haul.
Murali created history on the 18th of July 2010 when he became the first man in history to snare 800 Test wickets, claiming the scalp of Pragyan Ohja. Muttiah had claimed a wicket with his last ball in Test cricket, Galle was the ground, and almost as if the scriptwriters had deemed it so, Jayawardene was the catcher.
But our smiling assassin was far from finished yet. He buried the Antipodean ghosts which had haunted him for so long during Sri Lanka’s tour of Australia in late 2010. In the first ODI in Melbourne, he tucked his first ball away for a boundary to hit the winning runs for Sri Lanka after a miracle tenth wicket stand of 132 had ensued between young gun allrounder Angelo Matthews and speedster Lasith Malinga. In the next ODI in Sydney, as rain began to descend upon Sri Lanka’s hopes of victory, Murali took 2/30 going at just 4.28 an over as Sri Lanka bowled Australia out for 210 in their pursuit of 229 for victory. Sri Lanka had claimed their first ever series win in Australia and Muttiah had put yet another monkey off his back.
In his grand finale- the 2011 Cricket World Cup, Muttiah Muralitharan once again took to the New Zealanders (the team against whom he had first impressed with 5/64 in Napier) like a duck to water, snaring 4/25 in Sri Lanka’s final group game in Mumbai before claiming a wicket from his last ball in Sri Lanka during Sri Lanka’s Semi-Final against the Kiwis in Colombo as Sri Lanka won by 5 wickets and he was given a lap of honour around the ………. Stadium. Despite suffering from a hamstring injury, Murali had claimed ……. wickets in the tournament, and left a lasting mark on the hearts of the people he so loves.
Muralitharan’s Test record against all nations
Muralitharan’s overall bowling statistics
Versus | M | O | M | R | W | 5w | 10w | Best | Avg | S/R | E/R |
Australia | 13 | 685.3 | 100 | 2128 | 59 | 5 | 1 | 6 for 59 | 36.07 | 69.7 | 3.1 |
Bangladesh | 11 | 452.0 | 114 | 1190 | 89 | 11 | 4 | 6 for 18 | 13.37 | 30.4 | 2.6 |
England | 16 | 1102.1 | 348 | 2247 | 112 | 8 | 4 | 9 for 65 | 20.06 | 59.0 | 2.0 |
India | 22 | 1125.2 | 215 | 3297 | 105 | 7 | 2 | 8 for 87 | 32.32 | 66.1 | 2.9 |
New Zealand | 14 | 753.2 | 203 | 1776 | 82 | 5 | 1 | 6 for 87 | 21.53 | 55.1 | 2.3 |
Pakistan | 16 | 782.5 | 184 | 2027 | 80 | 5 | 1 | 6 for 71 | 25.46 | 58.7 | 2.6 |
South Africa | 15 | 984.4 | 221 | 2311 | 104 | 11 | 4 | 7 for 84 | 22.22 | 56.8 | 2.3 |
West Indies | 12 | 622.3 | 143 | 1609 | 82 | 9 | 3 | 8 for 46 | 19.62 | 45.5 | 2.6 |
Zimbabwe | 14 | 786.5 | 259 | 1467 | 87 | 6 | 2 | 9 for 51 | 16.86 | 54.2 | 1.9 |
Total | 133 | 7339.5 | 1794 | 18180 | 800 | 67 | 22 | 9 for 51 | 22.72 | 55.0 | 2.5 |
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