The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Murali Kartik waiting for his time

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Sunday, Nov 04, 2007
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Murali Kartik waiting for his time

Vijay Lokapally

NEW DELHI: He brings variety to the attack, has won matches with his bowling skills, but sadly has come to be known more as the ‘comeback man’ of Indian cricket after Mohinder Amarnath and N.S. Sidhu.

For Murali Kartik, a left-arm spinner of quality, this is the most crucial phase of his career that began seven seasons ago with a debut at Mumbai against South Africa. Rated high by his spin colleagues Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh, this 31-year-old has kept alive an art once popularised by the likes of Bishan Singh Bedi, Padmakar Shivalkar, Rajinder Goel, Maninder Singh, Rajinder Singh Hans and Raghuram Bhatt, to name a few.

“I just keep bowling,” is how Kartik describes his vocation. After a long domestic season, he played for Middlesex and became a ‘wiser’ cricketer. “I have to keep bowling to improve. Every day is an education,” he says .

Kartik has come a long way from the time he wanted to do so much in so little time. “I wanted to spin, bowl quick, fire an armer, try a chinaman. But I was quick to realise that it is not the magic ball that would get me a wicket. I had to be consistent and I had to be quick to adapt,” says the hero of India’s one-day victory over Australia in Mumbai recently.

He did precisely that. Kartik learnt to read the situation and delivered accordingly. “It is all about executing your skills in a given situation. Everyone knows how effective can the yorker be in a slog situation. But you need to bowl the yorker at the right time.

sSay, in the 49th over, Andrew Symonds in front, I would be foolish to try and flight and think of getting him stumped. But then I must have the skill to fire that yorker at that moment.”

Has flight become redundant in modern cricket? “Not at all. I have not forgotten the flight. It is still the key in Test cricket but not in one-dayers where you have to keep mixing your delivery.

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