Dissecting Murali

In a Test match which was under a cloud of controversy, Muttiah Muralitharan simply overshadowed events - at least for a while - by taking his 520th Test wicket. He overtook Courtney Walsh, who got to 519 in 132 Tests. Muralitharan took 43 fewer Tests. To put the matter into perspective, if he carries on at his current wicket-taking rate, in 132 Tests, he will have claimed 772 wickets.

Muralitharan's astounding bowling record is as much a measure of his incisiveness, as it is of a scarcity of other wicket-taking bowlers in Sri Lanka. For much of his career, he has done the bulk of the bowling, and picked up large hauls of wickets at home and overseas - the most recent being the eight-wicket haul in the first Test against Zimbabwe.

While his career took a while to get off the ground, Murali found his feet in spectacular fashion, picking up wickets by the truckload. In fact, so successful has he been, that if his haul is broken into multiples of 100, he would have equalled, and then twice beaten, George Lohmann's record of getting to 100 wickets quicker than anyone else. Lohmann, incidentally, achieved the milestone in his 16th Test. Muralitharan took 16 matches to move from 200 to 300, 14 to get to 400, and then 15 to reach 500.

It's fair to say that Muralitharan has benefited from pitches designed for his brand of bowling, and that Sri Lanka's lack of effective support has helped him reap plenty of wickets. But a breakdown of his wicket haul reveals that once he breaks through a line-up, he is rarely content with a few wickets. In 173 innings, Muralitharan has picked up four or more wickets in an innings 77 times, which is a mind-boggling 44.5% of all his innings. Even Richard Hadlee, who picked up wickets faster than most bowlers, managed to achieve this only 35.5% of the time.

While Murali and Hadlee compare favourably with bowlers with over 400 wickets, how do they compare with bowlers with over 50 Test wickets? Pretty well, if their rate of five-wicket hauls is considered a fair benchmark. Sydney Barnes tops the list, with nearly a five-for in every two innings, while Muralitharan sits a little lower, with one every four innings. But though comparisons are futile, Barnes, and most of the other bowlers on the list, bowled on uncovered pitches, while Muralitharan and Hadlee bowled on pitches more suited to batting.

But while Muralitharan has the record in his name, Shane Warne, who returned to international cricket triumphantly, isn't too far behind, and he'll be in Zimbabwe in a few week's time. With both spinners in prime form, and plenty of cricket to come this year, the battle for top spot is sure to get more intense.