Profile of a Cricket Legend: Muttiah Muralitharan
Muralitharan is one of the world’s best bowlers. The Sri Lankan spin bowler has had a fantastic career over the years and he has notched up a huge number of wickets for his country. Throughout his career he has been a standout performer for his team but he has also managed to court controversy. The problem was with his action; some saying it amounted to chucking the ball to get the turn he manages to get. While others say that he is just a phenomenal bowler. Be as it may one thing is for sure, he is one of the greatest bowlers in the game and he is going to retire after the current test that Sri Lanka are playing and is all set to try and get his total tally of wickets up to 800 in the process.
Muralitharan or Murali, as he is known, was born into a family of sweet makers in Sri Lanka in 1972. He showed an early interest in cricket and soon rose through the youth ranks to make his professional debut in 1992, when Sri Lanka played Australia. The amount of spin he was able to put onto the ball was phenomenal and many great batsmen of the time, Allan Border included, fell to his bowling attack. He was able to spin the ball by insane amounts and it took a lot of people by surprise. He quickly started to notch up the wicket count and started to get noticed more and more by the international media.
However the bowler has not been without controversies. Early on in his career he was accused of throwing the ball to give it so much spin. His strange bowling action made a lot of people very curious and they thought his action was suspect. There were a few factors which gave Murali his unique action. Firstly he has a deformed elbow which made his arm turn in an odd angle. Also, he has extremely supple wrists which allowed him to turn his hand a great deal. Finally his shoulder could rotate at almost the pace of a fast bowler. The controversies surrounding Murali’s bowling action came to a head in 1995. During a test match against Australia, umpire Darrell Hair called a no ball seven times over Murali’s action. This led to the bowler undergoing extensive testing using biomechanical experts over his action. He was cleared by the panel as having a legal action; they did say however that he had a defect in his arm that makes the action look illegal. He continued bowling and racking up the wickets. He took his 500th test wicket in 2004, again against Australia but again there were issues with his action; this time for his delivery. Again he had to undergo testing and finally the ICC gave him the all clear in November of 2004. The problem was with the angle at which he bent his arm, but finally he was able to bowl again with a clear conscience and resume taking wickets.
Murali has decided to leave test cricket. After the current series going on against India at home, he will retire from test cricket for good. The amazing thing about his career is that, at the moment, he is on 792 international test wickets and he needs 8 more to take his world record wickets total to 800. He may be able to do it with one test remaining; we should not count the great Sri Lankan out yet. Besides this unbelievable total of wickets in test cricket he also has 515 one day wickets. After retiring from test cricket, he will concentrate on one day matches and then retire from that form of the game as well.
It has not been easy for Murali in his career; from questions over his bowling action to even being hated by Australian and English fans. Fans once even threw eggs at him and called out racist remarks to the bowler, but he took it all in his stride and was stated as saying that he does not hate the Aussie or English fans. He does not hate anyone and he thinks people should forget and forgive and move on. That statement just sums up the great bowler who is all set to make a world record amount of wickets even harder to beat by taking it to 800. Even though it has not always been easy for him in his career he has made it through all the tough times by smiling and having a positive attitude. We should all learn something from this great man and hope he can get his coveted 800 wicket haul.
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