Humshakl

Is it just me or is there really a resemblance between ex cricketer Maninder Singh and Mr. Laden, the American CIA's #1 most wanted man ?

In the mean time, a lot of things are happening for India(n batsmen) on this losing tour of Sri Lanka.

** Sehwag retains his #1 spot in the ICC table.

** Sachin Tendulkar carved his 48th Test century, and is  now only 6 short of becoming the only human to score 100 International centuries (ODI's and Tests combined. Pretty amazing stuff. 

Like I said to a friend, we are lucky to see two players in our lifetime who have shown us the human limits. 

Murulidharan as a bowler and Tendulkar as a batsman are testimony of the highest (or farthest) limits of human endurance and productivity on a Cricket field. I have my doubts we will ever see them usurped ... not in our lifetime anyway.

**  Rahul Dravid has silently, meticulously and unceremoniously (as he and his career have always been) compiled 9000 runs as a #3 batsman...second only to Ricky Ponting in the process, and the only second cricketer of all time to do so.

800 ?

I do not have time to write my own words , hence posting someone elses, because they depict exactly what I want to say about the incredible Muralidharan who is just 3 wickets away from retiring as the only human (possibly forever) with 800 Test wickets.

Andy Zaltzman on Cricinfo calls Murali the Jimi Hendrix of Off-spin and further writes about him as quoted below:

"Murali has taken 40% of all his country’s wickets in his Test career, and bowled a ludicrous 33% of all their overs, ratios unmatched in cricket history.

He has also been their leading (or joint-leading) wicket-taker in 42 of the 53 Tests they have won with him in the team, including 37 of 41 from September 1996 to December 2007.

They have won only seven of the 61 Tests they have played without Murali, compared with 53 of 131 with him. He has not merely held the key to Sri Lankan success, he has built the entire house.

One-man-New-Zealand-XI Sir Richard Hadlee is the only modern player who comes close to matching Murali on the Maradona Scale Of Absolutely Critical Importance To A Team. He took 35% of the Kiwis’ wickets, bowled a quarter of their overs, and was leading wicket-taker in 16 of the 22 wins New Zealand achieved in his 86 Tests. They won none of the 14 Tests he missed during his career, which suggests that Hadlee was as important to his country’s cricketing victories as Muhammad Ali was to Muhammad Ali’s triumphs in the boxing ring. New Zealand won only 14 of the 170 Tests they played without Hadlee up to 1997. He was, without question, a useful cricketer for his country.

So good luck, Murali, in your quest for those final seven wickets. Cricket will miss you, your whirling wizardry and your grinning competitiveness".

Tea Talk

Some tidbits of (Test) Cricket I compiled for those in need of a tea break from the daily innings at the desk :)

For someone renowned for his tenacity and for spending astronomical amounts of time on the wicket, Jacques Kallis has not scored a double century any form of international cricket as yet. The only double century of his life has come in a first class match.

The marvelous Waugh twins - the gifted and charismatic Mark, and grittiest of players Steve - jointly crossed three figures 45 times as Test players for Australia. But only once did we ever see a 200 for a Waugh in a Test score sheet.

When a player gets chosen as a specialist batsman, goes on to play more than 100 Tests for his country, and retires with an aggregate exceeding 6000 Test runs, he is expected to score more centuries than Stephen Fleming. Fleming is only player in the history of Test Cricket to play in 100 tests, score 6000+ runs, average over 40, and yet retire with a paltry 8 centuries under his belt.

Sachin Tendulkar has scored over 7300 Test runs without running. Sachin's Test aggregate from pure fours and sixers exceeds what greats such as Don Bradman, Greg Chappell, Sanath Jayasurya, Dennis Compton, Rohan Kanhai, Aravinda DeSilva, Adam Gilchrist, Martin Crowe, Doug Walters, Ken Barrington, Mohammed Azharuddin, Len Hutton and Zaheer Abbas ever managed in their entire lifetime at the crease.

Scoring 1000+ runs in a calendar year at a batting average of 100+ has been achieved only thrice in Cricket's history. Don Bradman in 1948, the last year of his career - 1025 at 114. Garry Sobers in 1958, 1299 runs at 144. Ricky Ponting in 2003 - 1503 at 100.20. Mohammad Yusuf scored more runs in one year than any other human. In 2006 his mammoth aggregate of 1788 runs came at 99.33 per innings.

Brian Lara broke Sir Garry Sober's record of the highest individual Test score of 365 runs twice...on the same ground….against the same opponent! The Antigua Stadium at St John's in West Indies witnessed Lara score 375* in 1994 against England...and then 400* in 2004 against England again. Lucky ground.

Mahela Jayawardhane, the much underrated overachiever of our time is involved in the all time highest partnerships for the 3rd, 4th and 6th wicket in Test Cricket history.

Best individual bowling figures per innings for:
Under 75 runs is -> Jim Laker 51.2-23-53-10 v/s Australia  at Manchester
Under 50 runs is -> Jim Laker 16.4-4-37-9 v/s Australia at Manchester. Same match as above.
Under 25 runs is -> Glenn McGrath 16-8-24-8 v/s Pakistan at Perth.

Rajesh Chauhan once bowled 468 deliveries at Sri Lanka in one innings to get one wicket. A bit better off than Rajesh was the so called off-spinner Shivlal Yadav who 10 years earlier had thrown 450 deliveries for his one wicket against Pakistan.

Muralidharan has bowled 7279 overs in Tests to date. That's more than half an over for each Test run that Tendulkar has scored in his life. Speak about sheer physical abuse and endurance. 

Sachin Tendulkar has 101 scores of 50+ in Test matches so far, which means he scores either a 50 or a century once in every 2.71 times that he holds the bat. And he has done this over the past 20 years. That is consistency.

Of the 16 bowlers to take more than 10 wickets in a grand debut, only 3 went on to take more than 100 Test wickets (Clarrie Grimmett, Alf Valentine, Alec Bedser). The careers of 10 of these 16 great starters didn't make it past even 5 Test matches, and the remaining three did not make it past 20 Tests. Conclusion: If you make a grand debut, beware, the end is near :)

Sonny Ramadhin once bowled 98 overs in a single innings, and 129 in the whole match (774 deliveries, roughly equivalent of a day and half's worth of bowling). In the last 25 years of test cricket, only twice has a single bowler bowled more than 600 balls in a match (Muralidharan and Abdul Qadir).

In the last 50 years of Test cricket it has happened only thrice that the two opening bowlers finished the whole plate between themselves. Curtly Ambrose-Courtney Walsh did it in '94, quickly followed by Wasim Akram-Waqar Younis in the same year. Then in '99 Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie emulated the same.

Muralidharan has returned 10-for bowling figures in 4 consecutive matches...twice! This man can make even numbers look ridiculous, forget batsmen.


Sachin Tendulkar does not appear in any of the 25 highest individual Test scores at any batting position.

Mike Atherton was dismissed 19 times by McGrath (the most dismissals of a batsman by a single bowler), 17 times each by Walsh and Ambrose, 11 times by Allan Donald and 10 times by Shane Warne. This means 35% of his entire 100+ Test batting career was obliterated by just these 5 bowlers.

Caught-Marsh-bowled-Lillee happened 95 times. Caught-Gilchrist-bowled-McGrath 90 times. 

Mark Boucher has caught 50 or more batsmen off of 4 separate bowlers.

Erapalli Prasanna, the softspoken and gentile offspinner reached 100 test wickets in less Tests than Dennis Lillee, Richard Hadlee, Allan Donald, Jeff Thomson, Curtly Ambrose, Malcolm Marshall, Michael Holding, Shaun Pollock, Glenn McGrath, Imran Khan, Bob Willis, Shoaib Akhtar, Wasim Akram or just about any explosive/talented/proven fast bowler out there, with the exception of Ian Botham, Andy Roberts and Waqar Younis.

Wasim Akram was man-of-the-match in every 6th Test match he played. 

Malcolm Marshall was man-of-the-series in every third Test series that he played in...Imran Khan once in every 4.

Adam Gilchrist was never dropped, and never missed a single test match in his entire career. He participated in each and every Test match that Australia played between his first day of Test cricket to his last, in an unblemished spread. (As if we saw any blemishes in him any way).
 
Lee Germon of New Zealand debuted in 1995...as Captain of his Test side.

In the last 10 years, Pakistan, West Indies and England teams, each have played under 9 different captains. Australia has had only 3. 

After the win against Pakistan at Lord's today, Ricky Ponting has now won an incredulous 98 test matches as an individual, and 47 as a captain. Most players would be satisfied with even half of that. And no, the second most 'won' cricketer among currently active players is NOT Tendulkar. It is Mark Boucher with 69  :)

Roebuck on Murali

My favourite Cricket writer pays his tribute to the best bowler of all time. 

Click below to get to the write-up:

Murali hasn't been combative like Warne or full of rage like Kumble; more unconventional than them, and tenacious to the core, he has surpassed them both.

RHYTHM, OFF STUMP, DESIRE & LILLEE

Today Cricinfo published a documentary on Sir Richard Hadlee, in its eminently watchable online series called "Legends Of Cricket". This series is one of my favourite features on the Cricinfo web site.

Sir Richard Hadlee is a certified God of Cricket. The Pundits at Wisden nominate him as the second greatest Test bowler of all time, behind Malcolm Marshall, all things considered.

There haven’t been many who could command more control over the ball than him. A more disciplined, intelligent, resolute and lethal bowler is not known to the game. He is the only player to receive knighthood for his sterling service to Cricket while still actively playing Test cricket.

He retired from Test cricket with the record for the highest wickets. 20 years later, only 6 bowlers have surpassed him. It took Hadlee only 79 test matches to reach the 400 wicket milestone, a record bettered only by the awesome Muralidharan in the later years.

A superman in many respects, his achievements are monumental and his ranking as a bowler is doubtlessly among the highest. I could go on illustrating the greatness of this man against one parameter after the other and state what is already known to everyone - that he is one of the greatest of the greats. But that is not the point of this posting.

The reason for this posting is in clip-3 of the documentary mentioned above. The reason for this posting is the humility of this Herculean cricketer. A rarity in this sport that has shown to breed egotism as a certain side effect of success.

In clip 3 of the documentary above, Sir Hadlee mentions his mantra, his personal war song that he chanted every time he bowled -  "RHYTHM, OFF STUMP, DESIRE and LILLEE". Here is a how he explains this rather amusing little inspirational chant that he often used to egg himself further.

"Rhythm" meant the body had to be relaxed for maximum effort. "Off stump", of course was the target area to bowl to with consistency. "Desire" indicated the need to overcome the obvious problem. The batsman was an obstacle and had to be removed. Finally, "Dennis Lillee". Of Lillee he says "Dennis Lillee was the role model. The Inspiration. And particularly when things got tough what would Dennis do ? He wouldn’t give up. The 100% man". 

It is humbling to see a superman of Cricket admit devotion to and draw inspiration from a fierce rival, and be so non-egotistical and honestly open about it. 

Murali to spin no more

The bowling colossus from Sri Lanka will play his last Test match on July 18th.  His participation in One Day games thereafter is a matter of his own discretion.

In the next few days, ode upon ode to this unique cricketer and his magnificent career will be delivered from fellow cricketers, foes, fans and followers. There will be statistical blitzkriegs describing his astronomical achievements as a bowler. There will be arguments and counter arguments of his greatness or the lack of it. There will be ornamental narratives of his bowling exploits.

He will provide income and fodder to thousands of cricket columnists for the next few weeks.

For me, he is THE unrivaled bowler of all time. There has been no one as unique, as skillful and as prolific as Muttiah Muralitharan. Perhaps would never be.

Here's a toast to the Bradman of bowlers.