by Arunabha Sengupta
Through the nineties and the noughties Sri Lanka, that pearl drop suspended the glistening Indian Ocean, was the enchanted isle of cricket. And Muttiah Muralitharan was Milton’s chimera, lurking amongst the rifted rocks of the emerald island, luring batsmen into the entrance of hell.
He was a freak of nature — a chaos, a contradiction and a prodigy rolled into a phenomenon. ‘An impossibility that never entered before into the heart of man to conceive.’
He was impossible to fathom, physically and through measurement. A wrist-spinner who bowled off-breaks! A bowler whose wrists could perform remarkable feats — touching the forearm with the little finger, and rotating the metacarpals through a full 360 degrees.
He would run in, zeal and effort etched on his face… especially the eyes. Those dazzling, burning, large, eyes that almost strained to pop out of their sockets. The arm would come over, the wrist bent into impossible contortions, and the eyes would follow the full flight of the ball in earnest … casting an additional spell to overcome along with the mesmerising one weaved with the vagaries of spin. When it was done, broad smile often flashed between overs, sometimes between balls. And always when he struck. Which was often. More often than the laws of cricketing logic accommodated.
Nobody had heard of 67 fifers and 22 ten-fors in Test cricket. A post-War spinner with an average of 22 had been heard of, but only just. Laker had 193 wickets at 21.24, Wardle 102 at 20.39.
Murali captured 800—yet again unheard, unthinkable—at 22.72.
He did all that. Those blazing eyes never lost sight of the goal. The sparkling smile never left his face. And he did more.
Murali captured 1374 wickets in First-Class cricket at 19.64. And when Tsunami struck the coasts of Sri Lanka, he built 1024 houses for the homeless. He was there with the relief workers, in the very thick of things, putting in real earthy effort, serving food to the victims, a bucket and a ladle in the hands used to twirling the red cricket ball. Those blazing eyes exuding compassion.
Muttiah Muralitharan was born on April 17, 1972.
illustration: Maha