Mumbai, November 30: Muttiah Muralitharan is the highest Test wicket taker of all time and it is highly unlikely that anyone in contemporary cricket or in the near future can even approach the world mark the champion Sri Lanka bowler would set before retiring.
The ace off-spinner, who has grabbed a whopping 789 wickets to date from 131 Tests, is frustrated that he has been unable to make an impact in the ongoing three-Test series against India in which the visitors are trailing 0-1 going into the third and final match from December 2.
The Kandy-born Muralitharan, at 37, in the autumn of his prolific career that commenced in the early 1990s, has threatened to walk into the sunset before the 2011 World Cup in the sub-continent because he feels he’s no longer the silent assassin of yore.
Muralitharan has already announced his intention to quit the highest form of the game after his country’s series against the West Indies next year but has now indicated he may quit ODIs too before the mega-event.
“I am 37 years old and I can’t bowl as much as those days because after 15-16 overs I get tired. But I will try and play a little bit of One-day cricket that’s only 10 overs to bowl. If I find everything is not going well I might retire from both forms of the game before the World Cup,” he told a Sri Lanka newspaper after his country’s massive innings defeat to India in the second Test at Kanpur.
In two Tests in the current series, Muralitharan has taken only five wickets after bowling over 100 overs, conceding close to 400 runs with a best of 3 for 97 to show for.
Even his overall record in India in Tests is not very impressive, considering his stupendous performance in his long career during which he has grabbed 10 wickets in a match on 22 occasions and five wickets in an innings 66 times.
In total contrast are his returns in India, a meagre 36 wickets in 10 matches with a best of 7 for 100 at a high cost of plus-45 runs per wicket. He has also not taken a 10-wicket haul in India.
This pales even against his modest record of 93 wickets in 20 Tests at home and away combined against India with an average of just under 33 per wicket, including two 10-wicket hauls at home.
But Muralitharan is not an isolated case as far as legendary spin bowlers coming a cropper against India in the latter’s backyard is concerned.
Australian leg-spin legend Shane Warne has a similar poor record in India, having finished with only 34 out of his total haul of 708 wickets from the nine Tests he played in this country.
The final match in Mumbai’s Brabourne Stadium, which is hosting a Test after more than three and a half decades, now offers the final chance to Muralitharan to redeem his record in India.
He is not expected to be part of the islanders’ team when they return for their next series.
While Muralitharan, whose best visit to India was in 2005-06 when he took 16 wickets in three Tests, has not been able to trouble the Indian batsmen.
New Zealand’s John Bracewell, an off-spinner of modest credentials who ended up with a haul of 102 wickets in 41 matches, bowled his team to a memorable series-levelling victory in the November, 1988 in Mumbai.
Bracewell snapped up six for 51 to give splendid support to the great Richard Hadlee (4 for 39) to bundle out India for a meagre 145 runs in less than 50 overs in the second innings as New Zealand emerged victors by 136 runs. He took two for 81 in the first innings.
Jason Krejza, the Australian off spinner, grabbed 12 wickets on his debut in the Nagpur Test in November 2008 and could play just one more Test before he lost his place. He’s struggling in the ‘A’ team ranks now.
Going back further in time, another Australian off spinner Ashley Mallet, who finished with 132 wickets in 38 Tests, picked up a match-winning 10-144 in the Chennai Test of the 1969 series against India to power his team to a 3-1 series triumph.
Mallet had a fine series dominated by the Indian spin twins, Erapalli Prasanna and Bishen Singh Bedi, grabbing 28 wickets in five Tests.
Former captain Dilip Vengsarkar has some explanation on this strange fact.
“Indian batsmen have been brought up on such wickets and against such bowlers. Warne and Murali are great bowlers but the Indians tended to treat them with respect,” he said.
“The batsmen used to get after the others when they did not want to take chances against great bowlers like Richard Hadlee,” said Vengsarkar who was the India captain in the 1988 series that his team finally won 2-1.
—Agencies