 Muthiah Muralitharan has proclaimed that he may retire from international cricket
well before the 2011 World Cup if his body does not hold up to the rigours of
international cricket. He is currently in India on a tour and so far has
been mesmerised by the Indian batsmen. He has managed only five wickets in the
series so far at an average of almost 80 runs per wicket, and hasn't been able
to adjust to the flat pancakes of pitches and the opposition batsmen who were
once termed as the best players of spin bowling.
Murali said that he was a 37-year old bowler, who wasn't getting any younger.
This meant that he was not able to bowl the kind of overs that he was able to
bowl in his younger days for his country. There was a stage in his career, when
Muthiah Muralitharan would hold one end up in test match by bowling through
the entire duration of the day, whereas the others rotated around from the other
end. For now, Murali says that he does get tired after 15-16 overs, and that
could be a telling factor in his announcing his retirement from international
cricket much sooner than he had earlier planned.
Earlier, Murali had announced his intentions of playing in the 2011 World Cup, even if that meant that he needed to retire from the test match cricket.
However, he did add that he will try and play ODI cricket for now and see whether
his body can take the ten overs every game. He then added, "If I find everything
is not going well I might retire from both forms of the game before the World
Cup."
He also said that his body wasn't what it was earlier. "Two to three years
ago it was not like this. Now you have niggles here and there and my groin is
not the same as it used to be. We got the worst bowling conditions in the last
two Tests. We didn't have the bowlers; that was one of the factors. But that's
the way cricket goes, everything won't work in your favour."
He did say that while he did not know what was happening here, credit must
be given to the Indian batsmen for the manner in which they have handled the
spinners. However, not for Murali to get disappointed if they were not to go
back to their country without winning their first ever test match in India;
"Every cricketer has to go through disappointments. Everything you want
to happen in life won't happen; something will be missing."
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