Muttiah Muralitharan
Generally known for his Calm and Humble demeanour in a rare display of rage, vented his ire against former Indian Captain and Spinner, Bishen Singh Bedi. A long time critic of the Lankan Spinner, Bedi has always been amused with the admiration and praises Murali gathers, and personally described as ‘Ordinary’. Bedi since a long time has criticized Murali for his ‘Rule Breaking’ gimmicks, especially the ones regarding his bowling action.
Retorting to Bedi’s comments, Murali termed Bedi as an ordinary Left Arm Spinner who lacked variation and would have been hammered by batsmen in modern conditions. Bedi a member of the Indian cricket team from 1967- 79 had a vital role to play as one amongst India’s famous spin quartet of Bedi, Chandrashekhar, Prassana, Venkatraghavan. Known for his stealth and mastery of the art of ‘flight’, he would initially tempt the batsman to come up and attack but get them dumbstruck with his variations in loop, flight and pace. Since his debut at the Eden against Sobers’ West Indies team in 1967 Bedi went on to feature in 67 Tests for India scalping 266 wickets at 28.71 apiece.
Fresh from his Fairytale ‘Farewell’ Test at Galle the Lankan tweaker is now the only cricketer to earn 800 Test victims and leads both the Test and ODI wicket tables. The 38 year old after a long and glorius career might have wished for some respite from being destiny’s controversy kid. But his long time foe Bishan Bedi had some other plans.
Answering back to Bedi’s retorts Murali said that he considered the remaining trio of Venkat, Prassana and Chandra much more talented than Bedi and accounted Bedi’s success with the red cherry to the spinner friendly tracks laid out during that time.
The duo has been always involved in some controversy, with Murali considering taking legal actions against Bedi seeking US $ 17 Million in a case of defamation, when Bedi in August 2007 had compared Murali’s bowling action against that of a shotput thrower.
Tags: B S Chandrasekhar, Bishen Singh Bedi, Cricket, Erapalli Prasanna, India, Murali, Muttiah Muralitharan, Spinner, Sri Lanka, Srinivas Venkataraghavan
