Muralitharan vs Don
Indian media has been on the overdrive ever since he decided to call it quits after the Galle Test, the first match of the three match series between India and Sri Lanka. According to media Mural is feat of 800 wickets will never ever be surpassed and his strike rate of more than 6 wickets per test will never be duplicated. According to media Muralitharan's 67 five wicket hauls make him equivalent of Bradman as a five wicket haul is considered equivalent to a century.
Media is right when they say Muralis 800 wicket haul cannot be surpassed because with the inception of T20 and primary focus on one dayers not many Test Matches will be played and more importantly not many players are bound to last 2 decades in Test Matches, but the same statistics which make Murali the greatest cricketer ever, if viewed from different angles diminishes his greatness to a great extent and places him on par and even below par in comparison with other greats.
Muralis 800 wickets have come at a strike rate of 6.02 rate per test which is extraordinary, but he has also bowled as many as 44039 deliveries which means his strike rate of 55.00 balls per wicket. South Africa's Dale Steyn picks a wicket every 39.20 balls while Waqar Youinis has the best strike rate of 43.40 among retired bowlers. Waqar Youinis bowled 16224 deliveries for his 373 wickets and if Waqar too had bowled the same number of deliveries Murali had bowled in his career Waqar would have finished his career with an astronomical 1015 wickets which is at least 200 wickets than what Murali achieved. Infact as many as 21 bowlers have better strike rates than Muralidharan. Given below is a comparison of what would have been the career tallies of retired greats had they bowled 44039 deliveries in their career.
Please note that actual number of wickets taken are mentioned in first column, proportionate number of wickets after 44039 deliveries in second column and name of player in third column
373 1015 Waqar Youinis
376 943 Malcollm Marshall
330 891 Allan Donald
431 867 Richard Hadlee
259 867 Joel Garner
563 849 Glen Mc Grath
355 847 Dennis Lillee
Apart fron bowlers mentioned above who have attained legendary status, bowlers of the likes of Darren Gough, Ntini and Brett Lee could possibly have surpassed Muralis tally had they bowled similar number of overs in Tests. What is more a bowler like Mc Gill who is one of the most easiest bowlers for most batsmen has a better strike and Chris Cairns who is more of all rounder than a bowler too boasts of a better strike rate than Murali. In an era when statistics were not easily available the best way to judge a bowlers greatness was average number of wickets per test but these days with data in all areas easily available, the only way to judge a bowlers greatness is the average number of ball taken for a wicket.
Another area where Murali is rated highly is his 67 wicket hauls which can never be duplicated because no bowler is going to get to bowl as many deliveries per match Murali did nor is he going to get a chance to play as many tests. The fearsome foursome of West Indian quicks Holding, Roberts, Garner and Marshall were so competent in ripping through batting line ups that they got only 55254 deliveries to bowl in their entire career which is just 25% more number of deliveries than what Murali bowled alone in his career. The West Indian quicks hardly got any 5 wicket hauls getting a mere 51 five wicket hauls in a combined 257 wickets and that is not because they were not inferior to Murali but because the entire unit was so good in demolishing batting line ups that they competed with each other and blended so well as a unit that each bowler got only 2-3 wickets per innings. Among modern day cricketers who recently quit Wasim and Waqar often found it difficult to pick 5 wickets as most of the time one of them or sometimes both of them used to be stranded on 4 wicket wickets, their chances of five wicket haul being ruined by run outs or surprise wickets to a back up bowler.
It would be unfair to rate Muralidharan on par with Bradman especially in India because Indian media has always been reluctant to consider Sachin Tendulkar on par with Bradman even though foreign media and ex-foreign players consider Sachin equal to the Don. Muralidharan no doubt is one of the all time greats, but certainly not the greatness and not equal to the Don.
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