Seldom are athletes allowed to choose their moment of leaving; often the decision is thrust on them. Muttiah Muralitharan, in leaving the grand stage of his own volition, has confirmed again that he is the rarest of the rare. The bewitching off-spinner's retirement from Test cricket brings to an end a game-changing career. The numbers challenge belief — 800 wickets from 133 matches at 22.72 is a record that, like Sir Donald Bradman's average of 99.94, will probably stand forever. However, it is Murali's role in broadening perception that offers a measure of his bowling. It was fitting that he was born in Sri Lanka, where cricketers are allowed to develop organically, free from the chains of petty orthodoxies. Blessed with singular physical gifts — the combination of a hyper-mobile shoulder and an elastic wrist helped him put more work on the ball than any spinner in the history of the game — Murali set about customising his craft. But his advent didn't revolutionise off-spin, for although his methods were widely imitated, they couldn't be replicated. Another perception he helped broaden was that of the ‘legal' delivery: his action forced world cricket to confront the inaccuracies of its definition and accept the limitations of the naked eye. Murali's action was as legitimate as anyone's — nearly every bowler was found to bend and straighten his arm in delivery, an inevitable consequence of the forces that govern bowling actions.
No single cricketer has meant more to the fortunes of his national side than this magician with a perennial smile to Sri Lanka. Before his debut, Sri Lanka managed two wins in 38 Tests. Muralitharan has since orchestrated 54 wins, claiming more than 40 per cent of his team's wickets in victories. In deciding that his farewell Test would be at Galle against the world's Number 1 Test side, he sportingly set himself the challenge of having to bag eight wickets to scale Mount 800. He did exactly that — and set up an emphatic win. But his influence has transcended cricket. He has borne the responsibility of representation with lightness, humour, and simplicity, remaining a conciliatory presence in an often strife-torn nation. Not content with being a symbol, Murali has embraced humanitarian work. He has driven the Foundation of Goodness's project to rebuild more than a thousand houses spread over 24 villages that were hit by the tsunami in 2004. He has also committed himself to a project in Mankulam that seeks to use sport as a medium for alleviating poverty. The cricket world will salute one of the greatest bowlers of all time. Society will cherish this Tamil of recent Indian origin as an upstanding human being whose very presence has united people.
