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    Sep 7, 2008

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    700 down, 300 to go

    By Emma last year, mid-July Leave a comment on this post

    It required a spectacular effort, a mere 12 wickets in the match, but yesterday Muttiah Muralitharan became only the second bowler to reach 700 Test wickets. Yet, at his home ground in Kandy, to the man himself this appeared to be insufficient:

    “It is a big achievement, but I anyway knew I was going to get 700 wickets. The challenge now is whether I can get 1000 test wickets before I retire.”

    First, of course, lies Warne’s record tally of 708 - I’d like to know the odds on that taking more than one match to overcome.

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    14 Responses to “700 down, 300 to go”

  • Elliott wrote:
    July 15th, 2007 at 6.59 am

    I read on Cricinfo that 23% of Murli’s 700 wickets have come against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh…

    Warney only ever played 2 games against Bangladesh and 1 against Zimbabwe… For a total of 17 of his 708 wickets…

    Murli has so far played 9 matches against Bangladesh and 14 against Zimbabwe… For a total of 163 of his 700 wickets…

    mmmm :|

  • Reverse Swing wrote:
    July 15th, 2007 at 9.06 am

    Elliot beat me to it - 10 more tests against Bangladesh should see him home….

  • Marcus wrote:
    July 15th, 2007 at 9.47 am

    There’s this website called Howstat, which is a complete cricket statistical database. On it, I calculated Murali’s figures minus Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. The results were- 90 matches, 537 wickets @ 6/match, average 23.4 and SR 56.7. This puts him ahead of even Shane Warne. So this myth that he inflates his figures with easy wickets is just that; a myth.

    And Elliot, you realise that what you said would mean that he’d have to take 30 wickets a match, right? I guess he really IS a magician!

  • Vingana wrote:
    July 15th, 2007 at 11.28 am

    Warney never threw a single ball though. Murali’s career will ALWAYS have a dark cloud hanging over it and rightly so.

  • Theena wrote:
    July 15th, 2007 at 6.33 pm

    Oh, this is surprising: Murali breaks a record and a bunch guys come in here whine. That has never happened before!

    Oh boo woo. Read what Marcus said.

  • JII wrote:
    July 16th, 2007 at 8.32 am

    I’m not a big fan of Murali as he’s a chucker. But, now that he has been allowed to chuck, his figures are definitely better than Warne’s. Warney got a lot of his wkts against England, possibly the worst players of spin among ‘normal’ test playing countries. And for me, they are cheap wkts. Against India (the best players of spin), Murali has a respectable average of arnd 30. Warney has an average which will give Ricky Ponting’s batting average a run for its money. Add these facts to Marcus’ stats, then you know who is the best bowler.

  • shep wrote:
    July 16th, 2007 at 11.16 am

    JII,
    I was wondering what Murali’s record is like in Australia? Surely the toughest test for any test bowler

  • Elliott wrote:
    July 16th, 2007 at 11.46 am

    Best Bowler or Best Chucker?

    I was just going with the stats off cricinfo…

  • Rusty wrote:
    July 16th, 2007 at 12.25 pm

    Why this constant nark, nark, nark about who is “the best”, Warne or Murali? Why can’t they both be great? Why do you all have to put down one at the expense of the other?

    In fact, why compare them at all? An earlier post on this site, everyone was saying how pointless the ICC rankings are, yet, here you all are, ranking players.

  • Christopher wrote:
    July 16th, 2007 at 5.10 pm

    Warney never had to bowl against Australia, which would have made his figures far worse.

  • Theena wrote:
    July 16th, 2007 at 5.18 pm

    Oh I see. By your rationale, Malcomn Marshall was a shitty bowler cause he never had to bowl to Viv Richards and co. Wonderful.

  • Mohit wrote:
    July 16th, 2007 at 11.09 pm

    If you think Murali’s bowling action gives him an undue advantage, try bowling one ball stump-to-stump with that action!

    I believe his story about having a naturally crooked elbow and after a million biomedical tests and what not, I have no doubt that he is not a chucker.

    Shoaib, on the other hand…..

  • AgainsTTheWall wrote:
    July 17th, 2007 at 3.59 pm

    As Murali’s arm comes up it is bent. After releasing the ball it is straight. This brings the wrist into play and generates an extra amount of rip. A legal, straight-arm delivery simply cannot get this amount of energy from the wrist to add to the spin. Anyone can experiment with this for themselves - you dont need a ball you can slowly go through the motion sat at your desk - your supervisor will understand when you explain.

    I have often seen youngsters adopting this technique when they are idly bowling the ball to one another for the greater spin it produces.

  • Yobbo wrote:
    July 24th, 2007 at 3.46 pm

    Murali is a cheat. Stop defending him. Any true cricket fan shouldn’t be celebrating his achievements.

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