Steve Waugh recalls Muralitharan controversy
Two of the great cricketers, Muttiah Muralitharan and Steve Waugh played in the Boxing Day Test in 1995 in Australia. Waugh recalls the incident where Muralitharan was called by umpire Darren Hair for throwing the ball.
Muralitharan leads the most wicket-takers' list in both ODI and Test. His phenomenal career ended taking 534 wickets in the ODIs and 800 wickets in Test cricket.
But in the Melbourne Test in 1995, Hair believed the then 23-year-old was bending his arm and straightening it in the process of delivery; hence, adopting an illegal action while bowling.
In front of a crowd of 55,239 people, Hair called a total of seven no-balls from Muttiah. After the first five calls, Arjuna Ranatunga left the field to take advice from his team management and returned after five minutes. Muralitharan was called two more times before Ranatunga removed him from the attack and made him bowl from umpire Dunne's end.
Muralithara had bowled a further 32 overs and Australia had won the match by 10 wickets.
Steve thinks that things could have been done in a different way.
He reportedly said, “I just thought it was a bit unfair. Darrell Hair believed Muralitharan was bowling illegally. It was ugly to see a player (being misjudged) at such a big spectacle. It should have been sorted in a different way. To me that is demeaning and disrespectful to a player,”
Muralitharan, on the other hand, said, “I have forgiven [Hair] and forgotten. I had been very upset with him, but I have let it go. I am not upset with him.
People do make mistakes and I think he made a mistake. My action has been cleared. But I’m not going to look at the past anymore,”
Later in 1996 Muralitharan's action was cleared by the ICC after biomechanical analysis at the University of Western Australia and at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology.
