[Video] Murali on the catwalk

Keep an eye out for Murali and Ntini busting a move at the end of the video!

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Murali: One day cricket will fade

Foxsports: Sri Lanka spinner Muttiah Muralitharan believes one-day cricket is in danger of being eclipsed by the Twenty20 format of the game.

The veteran bowler is in India participating in the inaugural Indian Premier League as the bowling spearhead for the Chennai Super Kings.
He claims the short length of Twenty20 and IPL games will increase the sport's popularity.

"This is going to be the future of cricket," Muralitharan told the News.

"I think Test cricket will stay. All players and cricketers love to play Test cricket but one-day cricket will fade a bit.

"I think because of the IPL and Twenty20 more people will watch cricket. It is the 21st century and people do not have the time to watch five-day and one-day matches."

Muralitharan, the world record holder for most Test wickets, says he is well adapted to the multicultural nature of his IPL team.

The Kings beat Kings Eleven Punjab in Mohali at the weekend and Muralitharan posted figures of one for 33.

"When I play for Lancashire I play with many cricketers," he said. "I have learnt how to cope with these things in the dressing room. It is a happy dressing room with youngsters."

The spinner also expects further battles with Kumar Sangakkara, his Sri Lanka team-mate who was his prized wicket on Saturday.

"It was not easy to bowl to him as he knows what I do," Muralitharan added. "Still, I have to bowl and he has to hit the ball.

"I think in this battle I won. It may be in future that he might win."

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ICC ODI Rankings | Muralitharan drops out of top 10

Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan has slipped out of the top 10 bowlers in the ICC rankings for the first time in over a decade.

Muralitharan, who skipped the series which the West Indies won 2-0, has now slipped below Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi who occupies 10th position. Muralitharan, who leads the rankings for Test bowlers, was last out of the top 10 ODI bowlers in July 1997. The iconic spinner will now have a wait for a couple of months before attempting a return when the Asia Cup gets underway in Pakistan on 24 June.

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[Video] Kumar Sangakkara 54(33) Vs Csk | IPL Match 2 | 2008

Kumar Sangakkara Vs Muttiah Muralidaran.

It was an intriguing battle between the two I doubt any Sri Lankan keeper has kept more to Murali than Kumar. However, as always Murali has the last laugh.

Chennai Super Kings 240 for 5 (Hussey 116*, Raina 32, Badrinath 31*) beat Kings XI Punjab 207 for 4 (Hopes 71, Sangakkara 54) by 33 runs

Scorecard (Courtesy Cricinfo)


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[Video] The New Murali? | Ajantha Mendis

Mendis in full flight, All his variations and dismissals narrated by Colin Croft for Sky Sports.

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Murali, the team-man, to the fore | IPL

The Sunday Island (LK): In a gesture that captured the essence of Muttiah Muralitharan’s spirit, the legendary spinner sprinted to the ground with bottles of mineral water for his teammates.

Test cricket’s leading wicket-taker he might be, but Muralitharan did not mind being the 12th man, at least for the moment. Muralitharan, the team-man, came to the fore on a hot, sweltering Monday at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium.

The occasion was the practice game for the Chennai Super Kings, the squad being split into two groups. And Muralitharan was the cynosure.

Soon, the Sri Lankan off-spin wizard began his stretching routine. Not much later, he was into the ground again, bringing with him more sunshine and extraordinary skills.

"He adds so much to the side. He is probably the best spinner in the world," said Australian batsman Michael Hussey.

Muralitharan said, "It is a good side. I feel at home here. Let’s wait for the matches to begin."

Former India captain and brand ambassador of the Chennai Super Kings, Krishnamachari Srikkanth, said, "Despite his achievements, Muralitharan is such a humble person. He is simple and very approachable."

Good cricketing brain

Srikkanth was seen having a lengthy conversation with Muralitharan in the pavilion. "We were discussing the various combinations in the IPL, their strengths and weaknesses. He has an excellent cricketing brain. His inputs off the field, in terms of strategy, will be very valuable too. I am happy that the son-in-law of Chennai is playing for Chennai," he said.

The practice match produced some entertaining cricket. The big and strong Jacob Oram sent the ball soaring over the stands. Parthiv Patel played some cracking strokes at the top of the order. Young paceman Manpreet Singh Goni generated some speed and extracted bounce. Of course, there was Muralitharan.
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[Video] What makes Murali so great

Courtesy CricketCrowd


Lance Gibbs on Murali Magic..

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Murali's redemption, and our arrogance

A brilliant piece by Amit Varma for Cricinfo.

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

9.40pm IST - What the chuck!

I received a number of interesting mails after my first post on this topic, about the rather convincing documentary Muttiah Muralitharan has made to prove his innocence, the nature of the optical illusion that his action creates, the unrelenting attitudes of both his supporters and his opponents, and the possible solutions to the whole issue of chucking. A lot of people agreed that Murali has done enough to be spared the trauma of repeated accusations; but a number of others raised objections that were reasonable and well argued.

Martin Brown, Arvind Sampath, Martin Bride and Chris Higginbottom all felt that bowling with a brace - and, thus, a legitimate action - for a documentary does not prove anything, because it does not mean that his action will remain in a match situation. Bride wrote, "If there was an inadvertent straightening that resulted from forces on his bowling arm the brace would prevent that from happening. Then, when he bowled without the brace, the same degree of straightening would occur."

Well, the documentary did prove one thing to me, that I had doubted earlier: that there is an optical illusion caused by Murali's bowling action. If he appeared to be straightening his arm with the brace on, when he obviously could not have done so, then the mere visual evidence alone, during a match, is not enough to convict him. It is not enough to exonerate him either, but we do presume a man innocent until proven guilty, and the fact that he appears to chuck is no case for the offence.

Another objection, raised by Vivek Shenoy and Prasanna Ganesan, is that he may have bowled his usual repertoire of deliveries cleanly during the tests, but he could still be chucking the odd ball during matches. Prasanna writes that the process of judging a bowler's action has "a fundamental flaw. It assumes that either a bowling action is flawed or it is not, and does not admit the possibility that a bowler can chuck the occasional ball without chucking all the time."

That's absolutely true - of any bowler. The effort balls of fast bowlers and the doosras of offspinners are often considered suspect, and this is a problem that the ICC will have to address at some point of time. Prasanna says, "In an ideal world, we would run an instantaneous test on every ball that is bowled to check whether it is a chuck or not. Technology to enable that seems far away. But the least we can hope for is to identify whether a ball is chucked or not from video footage of a match." I'm not sure if that is possible yet, given that a camera essentially throws up a two-dimensional picture that is often flawed, as in Murali's case, but I'm sure that if a bowler's action is covered from every angle, one can come to a judgement while accounting for optical illusions. In any case, that argument holds true for any bowler, so why should Murali be regarded with special suspicion?

The popular belief that Murali chucks is due to the optical illusion his action creates, but Arvind and Martin (Bride) also point out that his action for the doosra was, after all, found to be illegal recently, as per the current guidelines which define five degrees as the acceptable limit of flexion for spinners. The University of Western Australia, which came to this conclusion (and corrected his flex from 14 degrees to ten), also recommended that the ICC review their guidelines for chucking as they were flawed. If one accepts their authority for one observation, then why ignore the other one?

As the ICC recently admitted, some degree of elbow straightening has been detected in 99% of bowlers, including the likes of Courtney Walsh and Glenn McGrath. By the letter of the law as it has stood for over a century, thus, most bowlers are chuckers. In the light of this, the law clearly needs to be amended, and the ICC has tried to do just that, with its recommended guidelines of what degree of flexion is permissable. These guidelines, as Mukul Kesavan explains in the excellent piece that I linked to in my last post, are arbitary, and should be modified so that they are "uniform and enforcable".

The big question here is: what degree of flexion is acceptable? As Dave Richardson said, "Even a solid metal bar if rotated fast enough will display a degree of movement." Do we put the limit at the extent that is caused by these physical laws of movement and resistance? The opinion of the biomechanical experts, like the ones who made the recommendations of revisiting these guidelines, is critical here, and until the ICC delivers its judgement on this matter, and its rationale for that judgement, I'll remain an agnostic on whether 14 degrees is too much or not.

(Note that if you accept the report of the biomechanical experts that shows the flexion of the doosra to have been 14 degrees, you should also accept previous reports which have cleared Murali's offspinner and topspinner, and accept that the 500 or so wickets he took before he started employing the doosra are legitimate. Let's not be selective in our acceptance of the evidence here; that would be the confirmation bias at work.)

Among the others who wrote to me was Rajakumar, who said: "While the entire cricketing world was focussed on Murali's action, many of the fast bowlers have merrily chucked their way to glory and profit." Hmmm. Well, I have heard from reliable sources that a fast bowler whose name has been taken quite often in this context was found by the biomechanical dudes to have a flexion of forty degrees. This information isn't in the public domain yet, perhaps for political reasons, but clearly, something needs to be done about it. Whatever happens in that case, though, Murali deserves the benefit of the doubt.

Will he get it from the Australian prime minister? Theena writes to me: "I am going to sit back and wait for John Howard to amaze us with his cricket acumen if asked to comment on Murali's action. I wonder if he would say - 'Yes. They proved it on TV with that brace thing.'"

Now, wouldn't that be fun?

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[Video] Murali Magic | The Doosra | Craig McMillan

Murali sets Craig McMillan up for a beauty.. Click to expand...

[Video] Sri Lanka VS WI | 2nd Test, Day3 Morning Session

Queenspark Oval | Port of Spain Trinidad | 05 APR 2008

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[Video] Sri Lanka Vs West Indies | 2nd Test, 2nd Innings WI - FOW

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West Indies 2nd Innings fall of wickets | Murali's 63rd - 5 wicket haul.

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[Video] Classic Catches | Muttiah Muralidaran Vs West Indies | 1st Test Guyana 2008

Spectacular catch by Murali during the 5th days play of the 1st Test match Vs West Indies | 27 MAR 2008

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[Video] West Indies v Sri Lanka, 1st Test - Day 5 | Guyana 2008

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2nd Session


3rd Session





5th day
Bulletin - Sri Lanka create history in the Caribbean
Audio - Michael Holding: Windies were lackadaisical
Gallery - Sri Lanka overcome spirited Windies
Quotes - Vaas stands tall to seal tight success
Quotes - Gayle looks to regroup

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[Video] West Indies v Sri Lanka, 1st Test - Day 3 | Guyana 2008

2nd Session H/L


3rd Session H/L


West Indies 269 for 9 (Sarwan 80) trail Sri Lanka 476 for 8 by 207 runs
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

3rd day
Bulletin - Efficient Sri Lanka maintain upper hand
Quotes - 'We would like more pace and bounce' - Sarwan

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Muralitharan sets caught and bowled record

Sify sports: Spin wizard Muttiah Muralitharan has set a record for most 'caught and bowled' dismissals (30), eclipsing New Zealand's Chris Harris' tally of 29 during their Commonwealth Bank tri-series league match against Australia at MCG here.

Muralitharan got past Harris' record when he caught and bowled Michael Clarke after the batsmen had scored half-century.



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Murali wanted to chase down egg throwers

Peter English on Cricinfo states that the young men who pelted the Lankans with an Egg were lucky that the light turned green!

If Murali had a stone or something near him he would've thrown it back, Jayawardene said in Brisbane. By the time they had realised what had happened the car had raced down the road. It was lucky for the guys in the car that the traffic light was green, otherwise Murali said he would have chased them.

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Ensure security, Lanka tells Cricket Australia

Sunday Times LK: Sri Lanka Cricket yesterday fired out a strong e-mail to Cricket Australia in the aftermath of an attack on Sri Lankan cricketers and officials by the Australian public on Friday night in Hobart, Tasmania. The incident occurred when a group of Australians ambushed the Lankan cricketers and officials who were returning to their hotel after dine out and stared jeering and throwing objects at them.

Speaking to The Sunday Times on the incident, Sri Lanka Cricket Secretary K. Mathivanan said, “Yes, we are perturbed by the incident and we already have cautioned Cricket Australia through e-mail urging them to ensure the security of our cricketers on and off the field. However when it happens in a public area there is very little that any one can do.”

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka was dealt with another major blow when veteran Sanath Jayasuriya was struck on the Jaw by a bouncer bowled by Tasmanian fast bowler Tim MacDonald.

Jayasuriya was struck while trying to pull a MacDonald bouncer in the eighth over and left the field for six stitches. However according to Mathivanan, Jayasuriya in spite of his injury will be playing in their tour opener against India on Tuesday. Sri Lanka Cricket President Arjuna Ranatunga will join the tour party on February 20 while Secretary Mathivanan is also expected to join him.

On Friday evening Ranatunga met former national players and appealed to them to come forward to help take the game in the island to greater heights.

Ranatunga along with some members of the Cricket Committee was present at SSC grounds on Friday when their teenagers went down meekly to Pakistan yet again in the Under 19 Tri-nation final.


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Eggs and abuse hurled at Murali in Australia

Cricinfo: Members of the Sri Lankan camp in Australia for the CB series were the target of verbal abuse and had eggs thrown at them on Thursday night in Hobart. Muttiah Muralitharan and a team selector were part of a group walking from a restaurant to the team hotel and the selector was hit on the back by an egg. As a result, the Sri Lankan board has asked Cricket Australia (CA) to tighten security around the team.

"Muralitharan, along with one of the selectors and the team masseur, were walking on the street in Hobart when suddenly from nowhere a car passed them and the guy starts abusing," a source close to the team confirmed to Cricinfo.

"He then came back a few more times and repeated this and suddenly he started throwing eggs in their direction. One landed on the back of the selector. The team management has lodged a protest with the cops but fortunately nothing untoward happened on the ground."

It is not clear whether Muralitharan was the target of the attack, though Sri Lanka's manager, Sriyan Samararatne, suggested it was unlikely, arguing it was dark and that the car was travelling at too great a speed for recognition.

"I don't know the exact motive. I doubt whether they recognised Murali but unfortunately he was there," Samararatne told the Fox Sports website. "We told Cricket Australia about it and they were very upset." Samararatne added also that nothing untoward had occurred when Sri Lanka played a Test in Hobart last November.

Muralitharan's presence is bound to complicate matters. The spinner, who is the world's leading Test wicket-taker, has had a difficult time in Australia in the past. His action was no-balled early in his career in 1995-96, since when crowds have often heckled him at various venues. The reaction was so hostile Muralitharan refused to tour Australia in 2004, but he returned for Sri Lanka's series last November when the heckling seemed to have eased off.

K Mathivanan, the SLC secretary, said the board had informed CA about the matter and had asked for security for the team to be enhanced. "We have drawn the attention of Cricket Australia to this incident yesterday. They have already given the team security. But we have asked the authorities whether this can be beefed up further," Mathivanan told PTI.

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[Video] Murali Magic Vs New Zealand | 2006/07

Murali spins his magic on kiwi soil. He continues to bamboozle the cricketing world and no batsman has really stood the test of time against this great man.

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