by Veena Gabriel
Another target, another Asian, this time it is Srilankan Off spinner Muralitharan.As per Adam Gilchrist Murali chucked the ball but when action was threatened against him the Srilankan team led by Arjun Ranatunga cried foul saying it was a racial attack and tried to divide the cricket world into two parts,white and black.
As per the great man, Murali should have been checked in mid 1991’s when he started playing cricket. As per him , he likes Murali and very magnanimously absolves him from any wrong doing because no one told Murali what was right and what was wrong.
In fact as per him ,notice should have been taken when Darrell Hair and and Ross Emerson no-balled him in Australia in 1995. He and many others in the cricket world do not believe in the theory of optical illusion and feel something was not right when Murali bowled.
He also accused Ranatunga of holding ICC at ransom, threatening to pull his team out of Adelaide Oval and appealing that the match referee who pressed charges could not give judgement on it.
He also lamented the fact that ICC instead of correcting Murali bent the rules in his favour and allowed 15 degree of arm straightening trifle more than Murali’s where as previously it was less than 10 degrees.
The dubious champion of the batsmen all over the cricket world, sympathised with all those who were victims of Murali’s Chucking and had to forgo their careers in cricket.He charged Murali for technically breaching the rules and also having some kind of political protection.
The change of rules to accomodate Murali also drew an angry reaction from him saying it was “Horse Crap” Adam also has problems with Murali’s ‘Doosra’ the ball which spins away from the right hander and observes that proper scrutiny was not done in 2004 and ICC seemed to have passed it without required level of examination.He also states the fact that Australians look at each other in the changing room after they see Murali bowling and ask each other “Wasn’t that one meant to have been sorted out?”
One thing is clear, either Gilchrist has lost it or he is being very smart. After Indians it is now Srilankans,what better way to promote his book “True Colours”
