So Sri Lanka’s great M Muralitharan is finally retiring. A question which keeps coming up is whether he is the greatest bowler of all time. There are more than enough factors in his favour.
Growing up, it was exciting to watch first Richard Hadlee and then Kapil Dev go past the 400 mark in Test wickets. That someone would double that and almost touch 800 was totally unthinkable, but then that’s Murali for you.
Last Test is just another match for Murali
He also has 515 ODI wickets and was part of the winning World Cup squad in 1996. He is an excellent fielder and thorough gentleman to boot.
However, there are a couple of factors which are going to rankle while calling him history’s undisputed No. 1 bowler…
Chucking Debate: That’s been the single biggest talking point of Murali’s illustrious career. Interestingly, before the Aravinda de Silva-Darrell chucking controversy of 1995, Murali had taken 80 wickets in 22 matches, about 3.6 wickets per match. After that, umpires became wary of calling Murali for chucking and he took 713 wickets in 111 Tests, that’s about 6.4 wickets per match! Officially, Murali has been totally cleared of a suspect bowling action. Unofficially, the doubt will always remain.
Bangladesh-Zimbabwe Statistics: The Aussies always point out that compared to Shane Warne, Murali got a huge chunk of his wickets against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. That also is true. Murali got a whopping 176 wickets from these two countries. When one compares the wickets of Murali and Warne without these two sides, then Murali is closer to 600 and Warne is closer to 700!
Fear Factor: While you’d expect the greatest bowler of all time to strike fear into the hearts of all opposition, how would Murali fare compared to quicks like Glenn McGrath and Courtney Walsh, both of whom have more than 500 wickets. They were consistent, no matter what the pitch and what the opposition.
Then there’s also Wasim Akram, a rare man who could bowl six totally different deliveries in an over and all six could be lethal. He also took four hat-tricks in international cricket.
While Donald Bradman was quickly declared the greatest batsman and is still considered so by most, a similar spot for bowling has been wide open and may continue to be so despite Murali’s feats.
Murali signals the end of an era…
On April 25, 1990, Anil Kumble made his international debut. After about 20 years, July 22, 2010, will be Murali’s last day on the international field. This was probably the Golden Era of Spin. While there were many great spinners, the Murali-Warne-Kumble trio took a mind boggling 3200+ international wickets.
The fast bowling department looks pretty bare too. The three fastest bowlers in the world, Brett Lee, Shane Bond and Shoaib Akhtar have proved nowhere as consistent and lasting as their predecessors. In fact, fast bowlers are retiring earlier and earlier nowadays.
By the nineties, we saw the last of the great all-rounder quartet: Kapil-Hadlee-Imran-Botham. The last of the fast bowling titans, McGrath, retired in 2007. And now Murali is also going. In comparison, the current international bowling department does look a bit bare.
India vs Sri Lanka
It is interesting to note that soon Harbhajan Singh will be the leading Test wicket taker in the world among active players. If he keeps playing consistently, he can maintain that till his retirement. In pace bowling, it’s Jacques Kallis. There’s also Dale Steyn, but he’s pretty early in his career.
Are we seeing a period in cricket which will be more and more dominated by batsmen? It certainly looks like that as batting averages and team totals are constantly on the rise.
One way or the other, bowlers like Murali will be sorely missed on the pitch.
The author is a Bangalore-based journalist and blogger.
