Murali A Real Legend

COLOMBO: To watch the ICC wax eloquent on Muttiah Muralitharan at the bowler’s grand farewell on Wednesday was a surreal experience.

Over the years, as Murali kept earning wickets through skill and persistence, ignoring the jibes and technical twaddle, cricket’s world body and its established norms fell apart around him like it never had since the days of Bodyline. The controversy, although not entirely ICC’s own doing, quickly and unfortunately took on undertones of a conspiracy. Throughout, Murali gamely wore the chucker label like an albatross around his neck. It wasn’t his fault that the ICC let the issue fester for a long time.

On Thursday night, it was as if the damning indictments, the scrutiny of the umpires, the internal strife, the series of biomechanical tests, the uproar and tumult across nations, was all a bad dream to be quickly shaken out off.

Sri Lankan newspapers on Friday proudly displayed ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat’s ‘living legend’ compliment to Murali on their front pages, perhaps as a banner of acceptance, perhaps as the ultimate snub. The irony would not have been lost on Lorgat, who ducked all other questions on the issue with the slickest of ease. The laws prompted its own umpires to first raise the bogey in 1996, then discovering it had created a Frankensteins monster, a helpless ICC slowly saw its credibility erode.

It ended up disappointing everyone, from the Murali backers to the haters. Many current and former players agree the Murali issue is the ICCs single biggest failure. It spanned a generation, and even changes of guard and laws couldn’t bring clarity.

Murali and the Sri Lankans will always be resentful, and the doubters will never be convinced. He underwent two biomechanical tests, one of which, the first one in 2004, while talking about his congenital defects concluded "Muralitharan has a natural 35 degrees of elbow flexion, which during delivery action reduces to 24 degrees. Therefore, any biomechanical assessment must take this 24 degree into account. His shoulder external rotation is higher than normal, which allows him a greater range of motion during delivery. While this is an advantage, it does not directly impact on the extension of the elbow."

This only confounded and confused everyone, most of all the bowler himself, who rose above the pettiness and strove to prove his class over and over. Too many off-spinners now appear to have suspect actions, and umpires are hesitant to call, unsure about the 15 degree elbow flexion norm. This isn’t Murali’s fault. It has arisen because of the way the ICC has gone about dealing with the issue.