Muttiah Muralitharan has returned to Sri Lanka after his second season in Lancashire with a point to prove. Doubts have been raised by a declining strike rate and there is a young pretender stalking his crown as the best off spinner in the world.

Indeed, Murali's duel with Indian off spinner Harbhajan Singh is one of the most keenly anticipated aspects of India's seven-week tour of Sri Lanka. So far, honours remain even - Singh threw the Sri Lankan innings into a spin after a solid start whilst Muralitharan throttled the Indian batsmen in the closing stages of Sunday's gripping clash.

Harbhajan Singh ©AFP

The 20-year-old Singh shot into the headlines during Australia's tour of India when he spun the home side towards a Test series victory with record 32 wickets, including a memorable hat trick in the second Test at Kolkata.

The aggressive off spinner from Jullunder may have a long way to go before he can claim Muralitharan's world off spinning crown, but he has made an encouraging start in his 13 Test career, taking 66 wickets at an impressive rate of a wicket every 60 balls.

In comparison, Murali, now 29 years old, was the second fastest ever to the 300 Test wicket mark after Dennis Lillie, has taken 317 wickets in 62 Tests and boasts a career strike rate of a wicket every nine overs.

Some argue though that Murali's lethal powers are waning as fast as Singh's star is rising. During England's tour of Sri Lanka his strike rate plummeted to a wicket every 17 overs.

Murali though is quick to defend his reputation: "I don't think that 14 wickets in a three-Test series is a poor performance. It is wrong for people to think that I will take 25 wickets every series. Nobody in the world can perform like that.

"People should not only expect me to take the wickets," he said. "We have four or five bowlers and they also have a job to do. We all have to contribute to win matches.

"Look at Australia - they have four good bowlers, who contribute in each and every match and that is why they are the best side in the world at the moment.

"If people think that I an going to take 25 wickets every series then I will take over 800 Test wickets in my career and that's not going to happen."

Then in England, where he was playing his second season for Lancashire, the wickets failed to tumble with frequency of his first, when he grabbed an astonishing 66 from just nine games.

This time he took 44 in his six games, which would be excellent for most mortals, but seemed strangely under par for Murali, who bowled an average of 74 overs per game.

He feels that the improved standard of first-class cricket in England made it hard to repeat the astonishing exploits of his first season: "They have now spilt the championship into two divisions and the sides in the first division are getting stronger and stronger with more competition.

"The wickets were also a little bit wetter than on my last visit and the conditions were more suited to the seam bowlers," he said. "Considering that, I thought I bowled quite well."

It is clearly premature to right Murali off. Right throughout his career he has shown an appetite for overcoming adversity.

In fact he started his school career as a wayward medium pace bowler, who only started to bowl spin when his coach, Sunil Fernando, pulled him to the side and gently pointed out that his medium pace was not going secure him a place in the team. He accepted Fernando's advice and quickly established himself a slot in the Under 15 side, as a spinning all rounder. Soon he was in St Anthony's College First XI and claimed a countrywide record of 100 wickets in consecutive seasons.

St Anthony's College was a private school and his father Muttiah Sinnasamy was a wealthy confectioner, but life was no breeze and his progression into the national team was by no means assured after his schoolboy heroics.

Cricket was still dominated by the Colombo schools and selection was sometimes a fickle process. This situation was worsened by the fact that Murali is a hill country Tamil and thus positioned at the lower rungs of Colombo's elite. It turns out that he was simply too good and too determined to be ignored for long, even if his early days in the national team were not prejudice free.

Murali the master spinner ©CricInfo

Perhaps his greatest challenge, however, was when Darrel Hair decided to play God in the 1995 Boxing Day Test in Melbourne. Cruelly barracked by the sections of the public throughout that tour, the mob eventually persuaded Hair to no ball the off spinner for throwing. Ross Emerson followed shortly after in a one-day game.

Murali returned to Sri Lanka distraught, but determined. According to Prabagaran, his youngest brother: "When Murali returned from Australia he was determined not to give in. I remember him saying that if he didn't pass the tests then he would bowl leg spin. He honestly believed it would only take him only three weeks to get back in the side."

In the end he passed the Tests and was cleared by the ICC. He had had an undiagnosed physical deformity in his right elbow since birth and that prevented him from straightening his arm. His rubber like wrist was freakish, but not illegal, and Murali moved on a stronger player.

Having overcome so many obstacles en route to his modern day success, a dip in his strike rate is unlikely to mark the beginning of the end. He remains tremendously fit despite an overbearing workload and boyishly keen - always the first to practice and last to leave.

Nevertheless, he has to adapt to the new techniques employed successfully by England's stubborn batsmen. They opted for a simple policy of 'kick him or hit him,' but actually much more of the former. Stretching their front pad outside the line of off stump, whilst craftily keeping the bat behind the pad, they managed to keep him out, even if they did benefit from a strict interpretation of the lbw rule by the umpires.

He admits to being frustrated by the killjoy tactics, but rightly points out that there is more to cricket than survival: "What can you do? You just have to keep bowling. They can't keep padding away all the time, as you have to score runs as well."

His duel with the Indian batsmen is a mouth-watering prospect. They are not handicapped by the cloddish footwork of the England and thus have greater attacking options at their disposal. Whether they have the courage to use them remains to be seen.

Murali plays down the duel with Harbhajan Singh, simply saying: "There is no competition. If he bowls well he will take wickets and if I bowl well I will do the same." Nevertheless, during the time of the Australian tour of India he was ribbed gently by his colleagues that Singh was pinching his mantle. Murali has too much pride not to be spurred on by the competition.

In the end, one suspects that they will both succeed, as they are clearly head and shoulders above their colleagues. The big question will be, which batsmen cope best with the finger spinning assassins, and that will decide the Test series, if not the Coca Cola Cup.

© CricInfo