Murali decides to retire, requests young players be given a 'go'

By A.C. de Silva

CRICKET: A great cricketing chapter in Sri Lanka will be closed soon. The announcement of 38 year-old Muttiah Muralitharan that he will retire from active cricket after the Test match against India starting on July 18 at the Galle Esplanade, closes a chapter in the annals of Sri Lanka cricket.

It is great, no doubt, for a player to take 792 wickets at Test level in 132 matches and that's not all and in August 1992 at the R. Premadasa Stadium, he became the first cricketer to take 500 wickets in both Tests and One-Day Internationals.

Muralitharan has told the selectors it would be in the best interest of Sri Lanka cricket to try out young players. He is likely to play in the shorter version of the game a little longer. He was picked as the leading cricketer in the world by WISDEN in 2000 and 2006.

Muralitharan is the first wrist-spinning off-spinner in the history of the game. He bowls marathon spells, yet he is usually on the attack. His unique bowling action begins with an open-chested short run-up, and culminates with an extremely wristy release which had him mistaken for a leg-spinner early in his career by former Australian captain Allan Border.

Aside from his off-break, his main deliveries are a fast top-spinner which goes straight on, and the Doosra, a surprise delivery which turns from the leg to off (the opposite direction of his stock delivery) with no easily discernible change of action. His newest variation is a version of Shane Warne's slider, which is flicked out the side of his hand and rushed onto batsmen like a flipper. His super-flexible wrist makes him especially potent and guarantees him turn on any surface.

Since his debut in 1992, Muralitharan has taken 792 Test wickets and over 515 One Day International wickets in 337 matches becoming the first player to take 1,000 wickets combined in the two main forms of international cricket.

Debut at 20 years

On 28 August 1992 at the age of 20, Muralitharan made his debut against Australia at the Khettarama Stadium and claimed 3 for 141. Craig McDermott was his first Test wicket. His freakish action and his angular run-up showed that this was no run-of-the-mill spinner. During his first Test, further was one dismissal which convinced many of Muralitharan's special powers. Tom Moody's leg-stump was dislodged when he shouldered arms to a delivery that pitched at least two feet outside the off-stump.

The youthful Muralitharan went from strength to strength, playing a major part in Sri Lanka's back-to-back Test victories against England and New Zealand in 1992 and 1993. It was at this point in his career that he struck close bond with his leader, mentor and one time business partner, the authoritative captain Arjuna Ranatunga. This relationship formed the bedrock of his success and meant that there were few doubts about his status as the teams' sole wicket-taker. Ranatunga was thoroughly convinced that Muralitharan's precocious talent would signal a new era in Sri Lanka's short Test history.

In August 1993 at Moratuwa, Muralitharan captured 5 for 104 in South Africa's first innings, his first five-wicket haul in Tests. His wickets include Kepler Wessels, Hansie Cronje and Jonty Rhodes.

Murali excels despite drubbing

Muralitharan has continued to baffle batsmen outside the shores of Sri Lanka, irrespective of the team's performance. In Sri Lanka's humiliating drubbing at the hands of India in 1973-94, where all three Tests were innings defeats. Muralitharan was the sole success, with 12 wickets in the rubber. His perseverance in the face of some astronomical scores by the fearsome quartet of Mohammed Azharuddin, Sachin Tendulkar, Navjot Sidhu and Vinod Kambli was in sharp contrast to the submission with which his team-mates played the series.

It was New Zealand in March 1995 that Muralitharan displayed his qualities as a match winner on any surface. In Sri Lanka's first triumph on foreign soil, Muralitharan confused the crease-bound New Zealanders on a grassy pitch in Dunedin. The Sri Lankan manager Duleep Mendis' claim that Muralitharan can turn the ball on concrete was confirmed. One the eve of his tour of Pakistan later that year, doubts were cast on his ability to trouble subcontinental batsmen. By taking 19 wickets in the series and delivering a historic victory, the off-spinner silenced the doubters. The Pakistanis, who had negotiated Warne's leg-breaks in the previous home series, were never at ease against him.

Prior to the eventful Boxing Day Test of 1995, Muralitharan had captured 80 wickets in 22 Tests at an unflattering average of 32.74. Even at that point in his career he was the leading wicket taker for Sri Lanka,having gone past Rumesh Ratnayake's aggregate of 73 wickets.

Boxing Day Test

During the second Test between Sri Lanka and Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Boxing Day 1995, Australian umpire Darrell Hair called Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan for throwing in front of a crowd of 55,239. The off-spinner, was no-balled seven times in three overs by Hair, who believed the then 23 year-old was bending his arm and straightening it in the process of delivery an illegal action in cricket.

The drama unfolded midway through the second session of play. Muralitharan had bowled two overs before lunch from umpire Steve Dunne's or the Members' End of the ground with 'umpire Hair at square leg and these passes without incident. At 3.17 p.m. Ranatunga removed the bowler from the attack, although he reintroduced him at 3.30 p.m. at umpire Dunne's end. Although Hair reports in his book, "Decision Maker", that at the end of the tea break he stated that he would 'call' Muralitharan, no matter which end he bowled he did not do so. Muralitharan completed another 12 overs without further no-balls and, after bowling Mark Waugh, finished the day with figures of 18 overs 3 maidens 58 runs and 1 wicket.

Controversy escalates

By calling Muralitharan from the bowler's end, Hair overrode what is normally regarded as the authority of the square leg umpire in adjudicating on throwing, umpire Dunne would have had to break convention to support his partner.

ICC clears Murali

After biomechanical analysis in non-match conditions, Muralitharan's action was cleared by the International Cricket Council, first in 1996 and again in 1999. The legality of his 'Doosra' was first called into question in 2004. This delivery was found to exceed the ICC elbow extension limit by nine degrees, five degrees being the limit for spinners at that time. Based on official studies into bowling actions, which revealed that 99% of all bowlers exceed the elbow flexion limits, the ICC revised the limits applying to all bowlers in 2005.

Muralitharan's 'Doosra' fall within the revised limits. In February 2009, after becoming cricket's highest wicket-taker in both forms of the game Muttiah Muralitharan has decided to 'call it a day'.