Masterful Muralitharan too hot to handle

The captivating confectioners son is back in business. Earlier in the year, hill country off spinner, Muttiah Muralitharan, was padded into submission by Duncan Fletcher's pragmatic England, but against India's normally spin-assured batsmen he wreaked havoc, to win Sri Lanka's first home series for two years.

Muralitharan is such an astonishing bowler that his 14 wickets in three England Tests was considered a failure, even if he was hobbling in to bowl off one leg, having not yet fully recovered from a groin injury.

He then traveled to England for a six-game fling with Lancashire, where he took 45 wickets, 21 less than he took in the same number of games in 1999. People whispered: Is Sri Lanka's brightest star waning? Has he finally been worked out after being chronically over-bowled?

No, no, no, is the emphatic answer. Even superman has his off days and Muralitharan is shining bright as ever after 23 Test wickets in the three match series. He now has 340 wickets in just 65 games. Watch out Courtney, Murali's catching. Indeed, at his current rate of wicket taking, with the high number of Tests scheduled for the next two years, he will overhaul Walsh's world record 519 wickets sometime in 2003, at the still tender age of 31.

Superlatives are thrown at him like confetti and the English Dictionary is short of appropriate adjectives. Coach Dav Whatmore struggled to sum up his match winning eight wicket burst on the first day of the decisive Colombo Test: "He was incredible. Words fail me. The pitch didn't hold any demons, but he consistently beat the Indian batsmen in the air and off the pitch for five straight hours. He is an out-an-out champion."

Indian coach John Wright complained afterwards about his sides poor fitness, fielding and running between wickets, but he admitted that the batsmen were faced with the cricketing equivalent of Mt. Everest: "There were some soft dismissals in the first innings, but playing Muralitharan is very big challenge. He is without peer at the moment."

The contest between the Aussie-slayer Harbhajan Singh and Muralitharan was billed beforehand as the great contest, a potential Bollywood classic of the future. It turned out to be embarrassingly one-sided, with Harbhajan taking just four wickets to Muralitharan's 23. In fact, Harbhajan caused fewer problems and took fewer wickets than England's non-turning off spinner Robert Croft in March. It's now being billed as "the contest that never was," but it still decided the series.

There has been much talk about the growing potency of Sri Lanka's support bowlers, but the fact remains that, without Muralitharan, Sri Lanka would not have won the series. He was the major difference between the two sides, setting up the chance for Sri Lanka to win in Colombo. One wonders what Sri Lanka would have scored if he had been bowling for India.

No, Muralitharan is a class act. Perhaps he is the perfect bowler. He is unfailingly accurate, has seemingly limitless reserves of stamina, and a handful of well-oiled tricks. He bowls three basic deliveries: the off break, top spinner and floater, which straightens after pitching, but when you throw in changes of pace, trajectory, loop and fizz, you have an unfathomable assortment of variations.

Sri Lankan wicket Kumar Sangakkara has spent hours keeping and batting to Muralitharan in the nets, but even he admits to occasional moments with the gloves, when he has been left stranded by a subtle change in his unique rubber-like wrist action.

Players have adopted various different ploys to counter him, ranging from gung-ho assaults to monotonous padding, but the most commonly used by the right handers is to move outside off stump and work him to leg for frequent singles. Rahul Dravid, who largely adheres to this school, warned his right-handed colleagues early on in the tour that their best chance of survival was to forget scoring on the off side completely.

Steve Waugh claims, in his book `Never Satisified', that: "The key revolves around surviving the first 20 minutes or so, when the adjustment period is being negotiated. The use of the front pad is crucial as you can't be given out lbw if you get forward, because his extreme turn is always goping to leave the umpire with an element of doubt."

Sourav Ganguly, whose controversial first innings dismissal in Colombo was the first time he been dismissed by Muralitharan, revealed his strategy after the game, arguing that left handers best chance is to force him to bowl short by using your feet and warning that: "You cannot let him settle down. If you defend and let him bowl where he wants to then it's just a matter of time before he gets you."

No ploy is infallible and it seems that the greatest threat to Muralitharan being the highest ever wicket taker in the game is injury. Indeed, his unusually aggressive style of spin bowling in general and delivery stride in particular, which television crews complain is so energetic that it can create problems with the stump camera, creates the potential for wear and tear on his joints.

He is though tremendously diligent with his fitness and, unlike Shane Warne, is not tempted by a diet of pizza, Fosters and cigarettes. His is also fortunate to having had Alex Kontouri as his physio for nearly six years, which is an important reason why he has only missed a handful of matches in his nine-year career, the latest being the Centurion Test in South Africa, when he pulled his groin.

There are no signs yet either that the 29-year-old is considering a quieter life managing his snack manufacturing company. He is invariably the first into the nets and the last to leave, often following national training sessions with another bowling stint with his domestic club Tamil Union. Less talented players would be ridiculed for such boyish keenness.

No matter what the future holds, however, Muralitharan's legacy, including the controversy over his bowling action, which still rumbles on quietly, is sure to live on for generations to come, because no one has bowled off spin more potently.