Saluting the man with big smile and big off-break

There is little doubt that he will go down in history as a game changer. Hitherto,people with freak actions had only illuminated the skies briefly. Inevitably they were deciphered and were shown to have a limited repertoire. Sometimes,especially with the faster men,the body rebelled,it wasnt crafted to handle an abnormal work load. But Murali kept going. It had to be more than the action for the worlds obsession with it demeans him. Skill and perseverance brought him 792 wickets. If it was the action alone,a clone would have produced at least 300 by now,there would have been kids in the streets bowling like him.

Surely they must have tried,that they couldnt is a tribute to his uniqueness.At the heart of his huge success lay the simple big turning off-break; the unfashionable stock ball that all great spinners possess. Shane Warne had the big leg break and on days when little else worked he kept using it skillfully. Only Anil Kumble,among the greats,did not possess the big turner but then he redefined spin bowling with variations of pace and bounce as much as flight and turn. Like Murali,he too was unique.

Muralis off-break was a phenomenon of the wrist,not the finger as it has been with off-spinners since the game was first played. And that is why he got more fizz and turn than anyone else. It made him one to watch out for. But to achieve success he needed more in his armoury. When the off-spinner has the straight ball,or the old-fashioned arm-ball,it makes the off-break more potent. Murali needed something to go with the off-break,a little dash of spice. Then he unveiled his doosra,by his own admission,after much effort and practice. Batsmen who came down the wicket to him would now have to ponder over that decision. The moment they played him from the crease,they had entered his kingdom.

Till June 1996,Murali only had 81 wickets from 23 matches,just about three and a half a game. Thereafter 711 wickets came from 109 Tests. It was like he owned the mint and could stamp his own paper. I remember him bowling in a Test match in Lucknow in 1994 and almost looking helpless as Indias batsmen,led by Navjot Singh Sidhu and Sachin Tendulkar,kept coming down the wicket to him. He took 5 wickets eventually but they cost him a lot. He was still like a car that took you to the destination but guzzled a lot of petrol. Each wicket cost him 34 runs then compared to a mind-blowing career average of 22.

Thereafter only two countries stood in his way. In India he averaged 45 and in Australia,where he recognised antagonism at every lamppost,he paid 75 runs for every wicket. But against anyone else,anywhere else,he was a champion. Much has been made of his 176 wickets against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh (surprisingly little is mentioned about Bradman v India and South Africa in home conditions against whom he averaged 201 and 178) but even subtracting those numbers (and you dont have to),he still managed 534 from 95 Tests. By the way,his numbers against England,112 wickets from 16 Tests,were comparable.

And so,lets stop being defensive about Murali and acknowledge that he was a once-in-a-lifetime cricketer; that he did things nobody else on the planet could; that he played to an extraordinary level of performance day in and day out,he did everyday what most people aspired to once in a lifetime. And nobody is going to touch his record. At 5 wickets a Test,which is something even the greats struggle to reach,someone will have to play 160 Test matches. Im afraid that era has gone.

So lets salute the man with the big eyes,the big smile and the big off-break. He was a collectors item because they only made one of his kind.