Murali goes round, comes around

Sri Lanka A team coach Chandika Hathurusinghe, who was Murali’s first captain at the Tamil Union cricket club way back in the early 90s and a close friend till date, was instrumental in the bowler frequently changing his run-up route from the conservative ‘over the wicket’ a few years back. And with the referral system coming into play, the coach is delighted that the new path will get Murali more dividends.

Confidence in his ability

But before he goes into details of the technical aspect of this ‘round-the-wicket’ advantage, he recalls a conversation with Murali on the eve of the Test that explains the confidence the master has in his own ability. Hathurusinghe speaks of how he tapped Murali on his shoulders as he saw him hunched over the boundary line fence, looking at the media circus following Mendis. He inquired how Murali felt since, for a change, the attention was not on him. Since the two go back a long way, Hathurusinghe could take liberties and ask his old pal a direct question.

“I asked him, ‘Maybe, this time you will have to share wickets’,” he says. Murali was quick to reply: “He said ‘forget that, now I have to bowl less number of overs to get wickets’. And that is what happened. If you notice, in the last few years against teams like India, he used to get the first wicket after, say, 20 overs. But here he struck quite early, because all the focus was on Mendis.”

After giving this background, Hathurusinghe comes to the ‘round the wicket’ issue. “Once, Murali and I got talking about his cricket. Because of a new rule, Murali was having problems getting lbw decisions because of the big spin. So I suggested to him to change the side. Now when he comes ‘round the wicket’ the ball stays near the stumps and when it straightens after pitching it helps him get more leg before decisions. Besides, the doosra also becomes difficult as it turns across the stance of a right-hander,” he says.

Since the umpires often found it tough to get the trajectory of the ball bowled from this different angle, most 50-50 decisions went against Murali. Hathurusinghe says that Murali doesn’t just work on his variations but also gives a lot of thought to disguising the balls that he has already mastered. Some time back when batsmen started to read his doosra from the revolution of the seam, the spin legend changed the plan. “He worked on bowling his doosra with a scrambled seam and one can notice the difficulty the batsmen are having in reading the offie’s wrong one,” he says.

Murali’s ‘doosra discovery’ in the late 90s too was because of him becoming predictable. Brendon Kuruppu, who was the Sri Lankan wicket-keeper on the tour to England that happened to be Murali’s first, has watched the spin great since his early days. “Keeping wickets to Murali was quite simple when he started playing international cricket, since all he had was a big off-spinner. There came a time when people started reading Murali. Batsmen like Hansie Cronje, Navjot Singh Sidhu and Sourav Ganguly started hitting him out of the park. Murali had seen Saqlain Mushtaq develop a doosra and he too wanted that ball in his arsenal. And it is because of this that he developed the doosra,” says Kuruppu.

‘Read his mind’

The ‘keeper, who is the present coach of Tamil Union cricket club, says that the only way to understand Murali is to read his mind. “Picking Murali is something that many have tried and failed. To understand him, one needs to know what he is planning. The batsmen should try to guess his tactics and the angles he is working on,” he says.

But that’s easier said than done since Hathurusinghe has an old tale that proves Murali always stays one step ahead of his rivals. “Not just at cricket, he doesn’t like to lose at anything. During our early days at Tamil Union, there was a billiards table.

“Murali wasn’t into cue sports so we didn’t allow him to play to protect the baize top of the table. The nets used to start at 4 pm but Murali started coming to the club two hours early. He used to come and play endlessly with the markers and there came a time when he was much better than us,” says Hathurusinghe.

Mendis can have more variations than Murali but the old master will remain one of a kind.

•Murali’s second innings victims

Overs 6.4

BatsmanVirender Sehwag

Mode of dismissal The ball pitched on the leg stump and straightened as Sehwag shouldered arms. The ball brushed the front pad and hit the back pad. Umpire Mark Benson ruled not out but Jayawardene successfully appealed

Overs 23.4

Batsman sachin tendulkar

Mode of dismissal Another successful review for Sri Lanka. A doosra down the leg side, Tendulkar plays the paddle sweep, ball hits the pad, then deflects to the leading edge of the bat and balloons towards leg slip

Overs 29.5

Batsman gautam gambhir

Mode of dismissal Flighted delivery around the off stump, Gambhir leans out to play the shot over covers with the turn. Gambhir is beaten by flight and the big turn and is stumped

Overs 33.5

Batsman sourav ganguly

Mode of dismissal A quicker, flatter off-break that turns big on Ganguly from leg to off and batsman edges it to second slip where Dilshan takes a fine catch.

Overs 35.5

Batsman dinesh karthik

Mode of dismissal Yet another doosra that forces Karthik to shuffle on the backfoot and open up. The ball catches the outside edge and Jayawardene at first slip takes a sharp catch to his left

Overs 41.3

Batsman anil kumble

Mode of dismissal A quick off-break, pitched short and Kumble tries to play the square-cut but doesn’t get the space and only manages to drag it back to the stumps