Milestone time for Murali, and the best country for Tests

Sri Lanka's talismanic figure is on the verge of another milestone. After an unusually shambolic start to the VB Series - he went for 67 against the Australians in Melbourne - Muttiah Muralitharan was back to his usual efficient self against the South Africans, returning figures of 2 for 34 from nine overs. Those two wickets also took his overall ODI tally to 397, just three short of becoming only the third bowler to reach the 400-wicket mark.

Through most of his 12-year career, Murali has been Sri Lanka's go-to man. With him in the side, the Sri Lankans have lost just 37% of matches (94 out of 254); without him, that percentage balloons up to 60.49 (49 out of 81).

In the early days, when Murali only had the big ripping offspinner as his chief weapon, he was seen as a one-dimensional bowler, one who could be dominated once the batsmen got the hang of the amount of turn he generates. Then, he worked on his bowling, developed the doosra, and has since then been virtually unstoppable. The table below shows just how much his stats have improved in the second half of his career, after he reached 200 wickets.

Murali then and now

	Matches/ Wkts	Average	Economy rate
Till Oct 27, 2000	147/ 206	26.43	4.06
From Oct 28, 2000	114/ 191	18.75	3.46

With stats like these, Murali can easily stake his claim to being the best one-day bowler in the last five years, both in terms of economy rate and average. In an age when the balance of one-day cricket is increasingly getting lopsided in favour of the batsmen, Murali has managed to keep his runs-per-over figure down to an incredible 3.45, and his average down to less than 20. None of the other top bowlers have managed either.

Murali's wizardry has now been recognised by most pundits, but the one country where he found it toughest to gain acceptance was Australia, and his early results showed his struggle. In the last five years, though, he has turned that around as well, significantly improving his wicket-taking ability there, though his economy rate is almost one run poorer than his career stats during this period.

The aberration at Lahore
The drab high-scoring draw in the first Test of the Pakistan-India series at Lahore showcased subcontinental cricket at its worst - a flat pitch, nothing for the bowlers to do but pray for a batting error or rain, and a veritable feast of runs for the batsmen. Over the decades, the subcontinent has produced some absolutely plumb batting conditions, but contrary to what one might expect, it isn't as if batsmen do much better here than in other countries.

The table below shows how the runs-per-wicket stat has changed in each country over ten-year periods, starting from the 1960s. Since 2000, it would appear that Australia is the place to be for a batsman - almost 36 runs have been scored per wicket there, while in India the batsmen are almost as prolific. Three countries are huddled together in the 34s, while even New Zealand, it turns out, hasn't been so cruel to the batsmen in the 2000s. That it's the age of the batsmen is also evident from the fact that batsmen are scoring more runs per dismissal in every country except India, where the drop is marginal.

However, while Australia have produced the highest runs per wicket, it also has an excellent 82% result factor, second only to Bangladesh's 88%. A combination of various factors can be used to explain this - the pitches are conducive to strokeplay, so that even though runs are aplenty, they're scored quickly enough to ensure enough time for a result; the weather is usually clear, so few matches are rained out. More than 80% of matches in England, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe have ended decisively too in the 2000s; in the 1990s, by contrast, no country had an 80-plus record of result matches. It shows how much Test cricket has changed of late, and also - hopefully - that the Lahore match was only an aberration.