Lifeless pitches killing Murali

Looking for the good old days: 'Now we just use the heavy roller for two or three days, and flatten the wicket and make it slower' © AFP

As a general rule, Muttiah Muralitharan does not succumb to grumpiness, least of all when he is so heavily in the wickets as he has been in this series. But there was more than just a tinge of frustration in his voice at the close of an attritional day in Colombo. Between the two teams, 198 runs were added for the loss of seven wickets, which is stodgy fare in this day and age of Test cricket. And according to Murali, it's only going to get stodgier as the match wears on.

And if anyone's going to know about the prevailing conditions, it's Murali. He's now taken 148 wickets in 22 appearances at the SSC, including 12 five-wicket hauls. But rarely, in his opinion, has he been made to work harder for his breakthroughs than he was in England's innings. "I bowled alright," was his blunt assessment. "But this wicket has been like this for the last two years. There used to be bounce and turn, and it used to get higher and higher because wicket got harder. But it has changed."

It's not a change for the better. "It's going to get lower and lower, and slower and slower, and it'll be very hard to get a result unless something extraordinary happens," said Murali. With no great affection, he recalled the Pakistan Test on this ground last year. Both sides batted loosely in the first innings and were each dismissed for less than 200. Then the bite in the wicket vanished, and so did the interest in the match. Set 458 to win, Pakistan ambled untroubled to 337 for 4.

"It's a normal SSC wicket, and someone has to bat very badly to lose this Test match" said Murali. "It's very difficult to get bounce, or to get a catch for the spinners in the slips. You just have to keep it tight and wait for your chances, and with two days gone, there are not enough runs to win a five-day Test unless someone does something tremendous. The captain just asked me to bowl one end, and we tried to get wickets with the fast bowlers at the other end."

It wasn't always like this at the SSC. Seven years ago, England sealed a famous series win when 22 wickets tumbled on a crazy third and final day, but in the intervening years the spark in the track has flickered and died, much in the manner of the WACA in Perth. Murali suggested that heavy recent rains in Colombo might have softened the underlying soil, but also felt that the pitch preparation techniques were not as they used to be.

"Maybe we are using heavier rollers," he suggested. "In those days, we used smaller rollers, and were rolling for four or five days and really preparing the wicket. Now we just use the heavy roller for two or three days, and flatten the wicket and make it slower."

Even so, he now has 14 wickets in the series, at the very healthy average of 18.28. But he's certainly been made to work hard - so far he's wheeled his way through 118.2 overs - almost twice as many as any other bowler in the series, including his English spinning counterpart, Monty Panesar (65). At the age of 35, he's finding the strain harder than might once have been the case, not least because he's now lacking a very valuable and under-rated sidekick.

"We missed Sanath [Jayasuriya], because I would not have bowled as much if he was playing," said Murali, who warned the Sri Lankan selectors to think of the future of the side and groom a viable second spinner. "I'm mentally prepared to bowl and bowl, and I'm not good at batting so I might as well do what I do best, but I've got a lot of aches and pains because it's hard to bowl in this heat. After 25 overs I get tired, so it's not easy to bowl 47 overs within [the space of] five sessions. But I had to do it because none of the batsmen bowl that well."

Murali's good humour was undoubtedly undermined by the ease with which Ryan Sidebottom and Matt Prior repelled him in the course of a valuable 64-run stand for the eighth wicket. "He's an amazing bowler and it's nice to do well against him," said Sidebottom, whose success with the bat has been one of the more improbable aspects of the series so far. "It's not an easy pitch but you've just got to keep plugging away."

For Sidebottom, success with the ball followed soon after his innings of 17, as he bagged two early wickets including the prize scalp of Kumar Sangakkara. But then, as Murali might have predicted, the game went flat for England as they struggled to separate Mahela Jayawardene and Michael Vandort. "It would be nice to have a bit of pace in the pitch, or a bit of seam, but it's not to be," said Sidebottom. "But if we get an early inroad, maybe we can get on a bit of a roll and get two or three. That's the plan for tomorrow, bowl maidens and put pressure on them."