Why Muralidharan pulled out of ODI Series?
There were many bowlers who have avoided tours to certain countries notable among them being India and Sri Lanka. The reason cited by them is that the climate in the Indian sub continent is not to their liking as it is very hot and humid. Another reason cited is that pitches are unhelpful to bowlers. Even legends like Mc Grath have avoided tours to India at one point of time or another. It is a well known fact that Muralidharan has been ruled out of the one day series due to a injury sustained in the Test Match Series. While it is debatable whether Muralidharan is really injured or is feigning injury the end result of opting out of the one day series suits Muralidharan and his skipper Sangakkara if you consider the following factors.
India always have had a good batting line up over the years but they have always been consistent only in patches and whenever the batting has been consistent it has always been in only one format. This time around India has been consistent in all formats of the game. The reason for India's consistency that batsmen like Virendra Sehwag, Gautam Gambir, M S Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh play in the same way whether it is Test, one dayers or Twenty 20s. One reason what made Australia the best team in the world that there is a certain arrogance in their batting and that is best exemplified by players like Adam Gilchrist, Mathew Hayden and Ricky Ponting and the reason for their success is while there is arrogance in their batting, they have been extremely consistent as well. Indian batsmen are playing in the same way Australian batsmen were accustomed too playing a few years back.
Unfortunately for Sri Lanka there have been no respite for their bowlers right from the first innings of the First Test Match and a look at the lowest scores recorded by India in all the three formats of the game gives an indication of how badly Sri Lankan bowlers were mauled by Indian batsmen. The lowest scores recorded by India in Test Matches is 426, their lowest score in Twenty 20 is 186 and their lowest score in one dayers is 301. In fact many teams in the world would be happy getting totals of 426, 186 and 301 in Tests, T20s and ODIs. What is more demoralizing for Sri Lanka that their trump card Muralidharan was mauled the most.
Muralidharan is an all time great with more than 1000 international wickets to his credit, but failures can create self doubts in anybody and even legends are not exception in this regard. Muralidharan has a bad record in India if his performances in earlier tours prior to this tour are taken into consideration and the mauling he got from Sehwag and others would have created serious self doubts in his mind. A bad Twenty 20 and ODI series would have dented his confidence further and that probably would have been the reason for pulling out of the ODI series.
Like it on Facebook, Tweet it or share this article on other bookmarking websites.