Murali's journey to 400 wickets

Unusually subdued in the first three matches of the VB Series - his three wickets came at 51.66 apiece, and at an economy rate of 5.34 per over - Muttiah Muralitharan hit his straps against the South Africans at Adelaide. On 398 one-day wickets before the game, Murali needed a mere three balls to nail those two scalps - a smart stumping of Graeme Smith was followed by a regulation bat-pad dismissal of Johannes van der Wath, and Murali became only the third bowler to enter the 400-wicket club in ODIs, after the two Ws from Pakistan, Wasim and Waqar.

Throughout his career, Murali has been Sri Lanka's main man both for taking wickets and for keeping the runs in check. Chaminda Vaas, incidentally the fourth-highest wicket-taker in ODIs with 344, has played a fine support act, but Murali's importance to the side can be gleaned from the fact that with him in the team, the Sri Lankans have lost just 37% of matches (94 out of 255); without him, that percentage balloons up to 60.49 (49 out of 81).

In the early days, when Murali only had the big ripping offspinner as his chief weapon, he was seen as a one-dimensional bowler, one who could be dominated once the batsmen got the hang of the amount of turn he generates. Then, he worked on his bowling, developed the doosra, and has since then been virtually unstoppable. The tables below clearly show a career which has constantly been on the upswing.

With stats like these, Murali can easily stake his claim to being the best one-day bowler in the last five years, both in terms of economy rate and average. In an age when the balance of one-day cricket is increasingly getting lopsided in favour of the batsmen, Murali has managed to keep his runs-per-over figure down to less than 3.50, and his average to below 20. None of the other top bowlers have managed either.