We won't see the likes of Murali again

"In assessing Murali one cannot avoid the issue of his action," writes Mike Brearley in the Guardian. "Australian umpires called him for throwing in 1995 and 1998, and he has been defended by some who have seen this as a racist prejudice. At the same time, Bishen Bedi, the great Indian slow left‑arm spinner, has described him as a "shot putter" (he also described Shoaib Akhtar as a "javelin thrower"). My own response is more accepting. One thing I am convinced of: Murali's bowling has enhanced cricket. The range of his skills made him a fascinating bowler to watch and, I imagine, to bat against."

Writing in the Herald on Sunday, Paul Lewis pins the blame for the debate surrounding Muttiah Muralitharan's action and achievements on the ICC.

The villain of the piece is not Murali himself. It's the International Cricket Council. The ICC stand alone in sport as a body who rewrote the laws of their game to suit one man.

They pulled together a big-name technical committee, including Test bowlers Michael Holding, Angus Fraser and Sunil Gavaskar. They undertook electronic research which purported to show that most bowlers, including some greats of the game, bent their arms further than the permitted angle of five to 10 degrees (five degrees for spinners; 10 degrees for quicks).

Using this platform, the ICC then decreed that all bowlers were permitted to bend their arms up to 15 degrees in match conditions. The joke? Murali usually bowls with a 14-degree flex. Is this sounding like a strategy yet?