Adam Bailey
DeanoHarmoGood on you Murali
December 4th 2007 03:30
Category: No Category
Muttiah Muralidaran finally overhauled Shane Warn'e Test wicket record yesterday. It has provoked fearsome debate all around the world on the legalities of Murali's action and the validity of the record. But is it really a big deal in the scheme of world cricket?
How much advantage do Sri Lanka get out of Murali's tainted wizardry? Statistics say not much. After all, cricket is a team game but Sri Lanka are not sharing in the spoils of Murali's consistent wicket taking. All time, Sri Lanka have (not including the current Tests against England) won only 50 out of 173 Test matches. In Murali's time, Sri Lanka have been successful on 47 occasions out of 139 matches played. Now Murali, has not played in all of those matches but it is safe to say that Sri Lanka has won a large proportion of matches with Murali in the team.
If one removes the minnows from the equation, the statisics look even more damning for the Sri Lankan team. They have won 20 of those 47 Tests against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh out of 25 starts. The win percentage drops from 33.8% to 23.68% against nations of Test standard. Also of note is that twice in Murali's time have Sri Lanka gone a calendar year without winning a Test, four times Sri Lanka have on won one Test in a year. Eleven years out of sixteen have seen Sri Lanka win on less than fifty percent of the times they have played.
This begs the question, if Murali has taken 709 wickets in his Test career and they still have a very poor record (only 1 win from 20 goes against Australia or 3 from 26 against India), what are the rest of the players doing for Sri Lankan cricket?
How much advantage do Sri Lanka get out of Murali's tainted wizardry? Statistics say not much. After all, cricket is a team game but Sri Lanka are not sharing in the spoils of Murali's consistent wicket taking. All time, Sri Lanka have (not including the current Tests against England) won only 50 out of 173 Test matches. In Murali's time, Sri Lanka have been successful on 47 occasions out of 139 matches played. Now Murali, has not played in all of those matches but it is safe to say that Sri Lanka has won a large proportion of matches with Murali in the team.
If one removes the minnows from the equation, the statisics look even more damning for the Sri Lankan team. They have won 20 of those 47 Tests against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh out of 25 starts. The win percentage drops from 33.8% to 23.68% against nations of Test standard. Also of note is that twice in Murali's time have Sri Lanka gone a calendar year without winning a Test, four times Sri Lanka have on won one Test in a year. Eleven years out of sixteen have seen Sri Lanka win on less than fifty percent of the times they have played.
This begs the question, if Murali has taken 709 wickets in his Test career and they still have a very poor record (only 1 win from 20 goes against Australia or 3 from 26 against India), what are the rest of the players doing for Sri Lankan cricket?
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