The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Murali's delivery was legal: Bradman

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 06, 2004

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Sport - Cricket

Murali's delivery was legal: Bradman

SYDNEY, DEC. 5. Cricket great Sir Donald Bradman thought Muttiah Muralitharan's controversial bowling action was legal and shortly before his death in 2001 described Australian umpire Darrell Hair's attitude towards the Sri Lankan spinner as ``distasteful,'' his book publisher said on Sunday.

Sydney's Sun-Herald newspaper said that in notes relayed to Bradman's publisher, Tom Thompson, and released after Bradman's death, Bradman spoke of Muralitharan in glowing terms.

``Murali, for me, shows perhaps the highest discipline of any spin bowler since the war,'' the newspaper reported Bradman wrote. ``He holds all the guiles of the trade but something else, too. His slight stature masked a prodigious talent and what a boon he has been for cricket's development on the subcontinent.

``It is with this in mind, and with the game's need to engage as a world sport, that I found umpire Darrel Hare's (sic) calling of Murali so distasteful. It was technically impossible of umpire Hare to call Murali from the bowler's end, even once!''

The newspaper said Bradman's notes indicated he felt Hair — who called Muralitharan seven times for throwing the ball in the Melbourne Test of 1995 — had reversed the development of cricket by a decade.

``For me, this was the worst example of umpiring that I have witnessed, and against everything the game stands for,'' Bradman said. ``Clearly Murali does not throw the ball.

``No effort in that direction is made or implied by him. His every effort is to direct the ball unto the batsman! Murali wants to bamboozle, to trick through flight and change of pace.''

Thompson said he plans to continue supporting Muralitharan.

``Bradman said to me that he believed the future of the game is not with England, it's with Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan,'' Thompson said. ``We must support them as much as we can.'' — AP

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