Stani Army

Today, Wasim Akram’s long standing record of 502 ODI wickets was surpassed by the smiling assassin Muttiah Muralitharan. His victim, Gautam Gambhir, was Murali’s only wicket in their one dayer against India. Akram, told AFP:

“It was only a matter of time before he broke my record,”

“Muralitharan is a great bowler and he deserves the record – which are there to be broken. I noticed his progress in 2003 and realised he was the only man who could break my record.”

“At times I jokingly told him not to play one-day cricket, so that my record would remain intact”

“No matter what type of surface he has played on, no matter in which country and against which team…he is simply great and more than a good bowler, he is a good human being.”

“I don’t think any bowler will be able to break his records,” he went on “If he continues to play for another two or three years, he will cross 1,000 in Tests and 600 in ODIs, which will be tough to break for anyone else.”

Praise indeed from the great Pakistan lefty.

This will be a great time for Murali, who has battled continuous questions over his action and in the past had run-ins with the Australian leggy Shane Warne. It is for those reasons that many have felt that Murali has not been getting the credit he deserves from Australia , England and from the ICC who left him out of there 2004 team of the year in place of Warne though Murali was the better performer. The remarkable thing was, that for more than half the period in question, Warne was serving a drugs ban.

In March last year, Warne was promoting an alcoholic drinks sponsor of his with a doll they had launched. On revealing that the doll was missing a pick up line, he said “I wanted it to say ‘chuck us a VB, Murali’,” as a reference to Murali who had been accused of chucking. Yet the smiling assassin continued quietly on his merry way.

Murali’s wicket taking started off slow until he added his variations especially the doosra, invented by Saqlain Mushtaq whose career has been ravaged by injury. It is certain that Saqlain would have been up there with Murali were it not for his injuries. From bowlers with at least 150 ODI wickets, it is only Saqlain who has a better average than Murali.

But today was about Murali and Akram, who funnily enough, have both taken more wickets against each others nation than against any of the other countries in world cricket.

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