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A wicket every 35 overs
Wisden CricInfo staff - June 19, 2002
As usual when Sri Lanka play England, most of the pre-series talk focused on Muttiah Muralitharan, in this case his injured shoulder. At first he seemed it might miss the whole series, but it soon emerged that he would play certainly the third, and possibly the second, Test.
When England were outplayed for three days in the first match at Lord's, most people wondered what Sri Lanka would do with Murali in the side. The answer was not much, as England repeated a mastery of Murali they had exhibited in Sri Lanka 18 months earlier. Here are some of the stats to prove it:
In his two Tests in this series Muralitharan had combined figures of 8 for 297 from 124 overs. That's an average of 37, and a strike rate of 95 balls per wicket, well below his career records of 23 and 61.
In his last 16 series - including one-off Tests - Murali has only averaged over 30 on three occasions. Two of these have been against England: here, and in Sri Lanka 18 months ago, when he took 14 wickets at 30.07 and was even outbowled by Robert Croft.
Murali's strike rates in his last ten series have been: 49, 57, 53, 56, 101, 46, 35, 54, 41 and 95. Over his career, Murali averages a wicket every 60 balls - or every ten overs. In these ten series he has been below that on eight occasions. The two exceptions were both against England: in Sri Lanka last year he took a wicket every 100 balls - or 17 overs - and in this series he was only able to take a wicket every 95 balls, or 16 overs.
Murali struggled especially against England's trio of left-handers, Marcus Trescothick, Mark Butcher and Graham Thorpe. When bowling to them, Murali took only two wickets at an average of 93, and at a sub-Salisbury strike-rate of 213 balls - or 35 overs.
He was a lot more productive against England's right-handers, taking five wickets at an average of 18, and a wicket every 66 balls, close to his career strike rate of 60 balls. This disparity might, in part, explained by the fact that England's tailenders are all right-handers. But then Murali only took one lower-order wicket all series - Ashley Giles at Old Trafford.
England also stopped Murali making the kind of multiple incisions that have characterised his mass devastation in recent years. The scores of the England batsmen he got out were: 46, 94, 22, 7, 29, 81, 123 and 45 - only one (or 13%) in single figures. This is hugely significant. Of Test wickets 301-400, Murali dismissed 19 for ducks and exactly half in single figures. By so substantially reducing this ratio, England reduced Murali's ability to decisively influence a match. With Chaminda Vaas so out of sorts, it is no surprise therefore that they dominated both matches in which Murali played.
Rob Smyth is on the staff of Wisden.com.
© Wisden CricInfo Ltd
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