Muralitharan - Controversial but prolific

He did not carry the Sri Lanka attack for the bulk of his career, until his shoulder began to object and a little of the fizz went out of him – he was the Sri Lanka attack. Murali would occupy one end until play was done. Only his record against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, 176 wickets from 25 matches, diminishes him compared to Warne, who took only 17 from three games.

Darryl Foster, a former Sri Lankan bowling coach, and by then working at the University of Western Australia, put suspicions about Murali down to an "optical illusion". Murali bowled in arm braces for the TV cameras, in Colombo he even bowled with an ankle brace on his elbow because that was all they could find. Attempts to emulate Murali by Sri Lankan youngsters granted neither a revolving wrist nor a locked elbow meant a chucker on every beach.

And yet the mud has stuck – largely because of the understandable conflation in many observers’ minds of an elbow incapable of straightening with a wrist apparently adept at doing loop-the-loops. Put the two together, throw in – if you’ll forgive the verb – a degree of elbow flexion that nevertheless remains within the ICC’s parameters of legality, and the whole thing doesn’t look great. Least of all from high up and front on.

But that gut reaction is precisely why Murali has been subjected to rat-lab tests and all but humiliated by bowling with his arm in a brace to satisfy the blood lust (although, despite the remarkable turn and accuracy he still achieved with the brace on, you’ll still find people who disregard the legitimacy of that experiment).