Palm upwards, the record holder extends his right elbow along the sideboard. It is not straight. To be exact, his elbow rises at an angle of 27 degrees above the horizontal – even when the volunteer pushes down on Murali’s right forearm as hard as he can. Murali’s right elbow simply does not straighten. Nor does his left elbow, which rises 24 degrees above the horizontal. It is a condition, he says, which he inherited from his grandfather.
Thus, a lot of cricket history is explained. In releasing one of his fizzing off-breaks, Murali’s elbow went from an angle of 27 degrees to 38 degrees. According to the new lasers which can make precise measurements, his elbow bent 10.5 degrees in delivery, well within the 15 degrees now permitted.
For 20 years, Murali was the wizard – not so much the Wizard of Oz as the wizard that Australian umpires loved to target, as he was no-balled for throwing in international matches by Ross Emerson and Darrell Hair. But the latest technology appears to vindicate Murali. With one proviso.
“I challenged the system in 2004,” Murali said. “Spinners were given five degrees and fast bowlers 10 degrees. I asked why it couldn’t be 10 degrees for both. Then they [the International Cricket Council] came up with 15 degrees. I didn’t bowl the doosra for almost a year.”
Some more biology: it was Murali’s bent arm – his naturally, unavoidably bent arm – which allowed his wrist and fingers to spin the ball like a top. “When you really straighten your arm, according to science, the movement of the wrist is less. When you’re bent, it’s more. So I have an advantage with a bent arm!” Murali adds that he has double-jointed shoulders.
Is he in favour of the ICC clampdown which has put the careers of Saeed Ajmal, Sunil Narine and other international spinners on hold and, in effect, outlawed the doosra? “Definitely. I’m in favour of the system because it’s the only way to prove a bowler is chucking or not. People don’t understand this, even past cricketers don’t understand: everybody’s arms are not the same.”
Throwing has been such a vexed issue: in cricket, with all its traditions, any suggestion that something is not straight can provoke uproar.
Murali, 42, retired in May this year after the last Indian Premier League. He does not miss competing, he says, but still loves bowling in the nets and coaching youngsters: while he has a contract to coach in Calcutta, he does it in Sri Lanka for free. He has done so much in Sri Lanka for free – like loading up a lorry and driving it to areas hit by the tsunami, or funding orphanages run by the Foundation for Goodness – that he can be safely called the finest humanitarian to have played international cricket.
Relaxed, above the battle, Murali reminisces about how Sri Lankan players used to be paid $70 per Test; how Sri Lanka’s 1996 World Cup victory brought an ICC prize of $50,000 for the whole team, then changed their lives; and how one or two players now want everything, like Kevin Pietersen.
“He is one of the [most] talented cricketers in the world,” Murali said. “I think he has under-achieved. His average should be more than 50. My personal view is that he became dragged into other issues and his cricket dropped a little. When he first started, he was smashing everything. He couldn’t cope with the fame. Maybe that’s the issue – if he had Sachin Tendulkar’s mind, doing his job, not getting into team issues, he would have been better.
“If you are a top cricketer in England, money is not an issue. They get a very good contract and endorsements. They earn millions. You can’t have everything. He’s a good friend of mine. It’s all opinions and personalities. You can’t blame him. But you can’t blame the ECB [England and Wales Cricket Board] also for that. He wants what is best for him, ECB want what is best for them. Where do you cut the line?”
Why have England never won a 50-over tournament? “They tire the players. By the time they come to the main tournaments, they are tired. The pressure is high. They pick players who have played 30 or 40 one-dayers, and the good players should be averaging at least 40 but they don’t average that much, they just score one or two hundreds and then they pick them. So they don’t pick the right people for the right conditions sometimes.
“The other thing is they don’t play enough one-day internationals abroad like other countries. We play 30-35 one-day matches in a year but England play about 14 or 15, so that is not enough. They play more Tests and that is why they are good in Tests, but they think domestic matches are enough to experience one-day cricket. It is not.”
For all his achievements on the field – 800 Test wickets at 22 runs each – Murali is doing even finer things in wider society, such as promoting rapprochement “between north and south” – the politically correct phrase for “between Tamils and Sinhalese”.
Already 35 schools in the north have had artificial pitches installed, and all sorts of children compete for the Murali Harmony Cup. “You can’t think about the past too much, you have to move on with the future. As generations change then mindsets change. The people who left 20 years ago, their mindset has not changed, they still think it is the same country and is as dangerous as ever, but it is quiet. Not a single bomb has gone off in these five years.”
As the only Tamil from the tea country around Kandy to represent Sri Lanka, Murali has always been in a unique position. Now, as powerful and persuasive as the demonstration of his right elbow is his avowal: “I will stay here and live in Sri Lanka.”
