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It’s bittersweet, when great players tour for what we know will be the final time. Brian Lara signed off with a magic double-hundred in 2005; Courtney Walsh was maternally embraced by a blue-rinsed Colin Miller in 2001.
The Indian Fab Four of Tendulkar, Laxman, Dravid and Ganguly apparently played their farewell tour in 2008, though on renaissance form we may well be seeing three of those gentlemen again.
A few days ago, another all-time great slipped into the country with little fanfare. While we will sadly not see him ply his trade in the Test arena, Muttiah Muralitharan played the Twenty20 match against Australia last night, with three one-day internationals to follow between now and Sunday.
The world-record wicket-taker in both Tests and ODIs, he will retire from all international cricket after the approaching World Cup.
Australia has a difficult relationship with Murali. This is where he was originally called for throwing in 1995, and again in 1999. While fans across the world have opinions about the legality of his bowling action, locals seem to take it personally. With all the vocal assurance of the unqualified, they bray that he’s a chucker whose records can be discounted.
Testing by teams of biomechanists and clearance from the ICC have made little difference. Murali’s subsequent visits were taken as occasions to demonstrate the laziness and boorishness that make up an unfortunate part of our national character.
During the 2002 Ashes, the Barmy Army mocked Brett Lee with roars of “no ball!” every time he came in to bowl. Justin Langer berated them to the press after play. Never mind that Australian crowds had so mercilessly baited Murali that for years he elected not to tour here.
One of the hardest-working men in cricket, with 133 Tests and 337 one-dayers to his name, Murali skipped Tests on our shores for ten years, and one-dayers for four. It was only during the fundraising ODI in 2005, after the Asian tsunami had so devastated his homeland, that the crowd left their taunts at home. Murali was one of the driving forces behind organising that match.
The sad irony is that he is one of the cricketers in the world least deserving of such opprobrium. He joins the likes of Anil Kumble, Kumar Sangakkara, and Adam Gilchrist as men of the highest integrity, anachronistic hangovers from the era of gentlemanly conduct with which the game still seeks to associate itself. He treats the game with enthusiasm, opponents with respect, and results with equanimity.
Regardless of the jeers, the pronouncements by those who should know better, the attacks on websites around the world, Murali has somehow retained his graciousness. Wise men learn to let go of those things they cannot change. Those who can’t will find themselves dragged onto the rocks and dashed to pieces.
Murali gives the impression of a man who knows himself and is at home with who that person is. The opinions of others, however loud and numerous, are nothing more than froth and foam.
Of course, perspective is more apparent for him than most. Murali is a Tamil, from a people who have received the heaviest blows in a 27-year civil war. He knows how lucky he is. That he is prepared to bridge that gap and play in the Sinhalese-dominated field of cricket is tribute to the strength of the man’s character. That he is able to be a role model and inspiration for his own people is both burden and reward in one.
On the field, he is a pot that is always in danger of bubbling over.
It’s all there in his delivery – the bulging eyes, seemingly about to pop from his head; the crackling electric flurry of unwinding legs and arms and wrist; the beaming grin that shines through regardless of whether things go for or against him.
The smile is the ever-present part of his play. Murali has worn his body threadbare, stood countless hours in the blazing sun, sent down so many thousands of overs, but not because he wants to be a star, nor for the pride of his nation.
Deep down it’s because he loves the game, the contest, everything about it. In him lives the same urge that sees kids pick up fence-paling bats and taped-up tennis balls in the back lanes of Kandy, Chennai, and Fitzroy.
One of the greatest measures of the man came with his final Test match.
Murali had made no secret of his desire to get to 800 career wickets, a bracket no other bowler has reached or is likely to do. Yet with 792 to his name, he announced that he would retire after one more Test, the first of this year’s series against India.
What about the record? he was asked by bewildered journalists. He would have a good chance, he said. If it came, it would come. The important thing was there were young spinners who needed a chance in the team.
Not many bowlers could have been so Zen about the prospect of taking eight wickets in a match. Nor would many have put their hands up to walk away so close to a milestone, when even the team management was encouraging them to stay on. Not many, but then not many have ever rivalled Muralitharan in any respect.
He took his 67th career five-for in the first innings, and two middle-order wickets as the second progressed. He then had to sweat as Lasith Malinga blasted out five batsmen at the other end to leave India nine wickets down. Meanwhile Murali himself had two lbw appeals rejected which could have been wickets on any other day.
But he didn’t let it faze him. In the final mammoth spell of a career full of them, Murali kept bowling, kept smiling, missed a run-out by a couple of inches with a fierce throw from mid-off, and finally turned a ball away from left-handed Pragyan Ohja to land in the hands of Mahela Jayawardene at first slip.
The crowd went up. The field went up. The hero was enveloped. By the skin of his teeth, Murali had taken that final crucial wicket. One suspects that if he hadn’t have done, he would have left the field smiling as broadly.
It was a fairytale farewell in cricket whites, an appropriate exercise in scripting by a man who specialised in rewriting record books. Now we begin to count down his final appearances in the vibrant blue and yellow of Sri Lanka.
In the next week, one of the greatest stars of the game’s rich history will twist and ripple that python wrist for thirty more overs, before leaving here for the final time.
Go and see him. We will truly never see his like again.