Legendary Sri Lanka spinner Muttiah Muralitharan feels that Indian Premier League tweakers aren’t trying to flip the ball because they haven’t mastered the art since they were young.
According to Muralitharan, spinners today focus on containing with variations rather than mastering the skill of spinning the ball and making batters think.
“(The) domestic level (cricket) has also been like this for spinners. When we played cricket, as a spinner, you have to turn the ball — that is your first objective. Nowadays, it’s not the key because everyone is not looking at (playing) Test cricket. They are looking to play one-day cricket,” PTI quoted Muralitharan telling reporters after Sunrisers Hyderabad beat Mumbai Indians by six wickets in Mumbai on Wednesday.
“Even at a young age, they only try to bowl quicker, vary (the deliveries) and not try to spin it. Because they are not getting that ability from the younger days, they can’t come (at the age of) 19s and 18s and try to spin the ball because their muscle memories are already there in place.
“When you are (at the) age of 10, 11, (or) 12, try to spin. That’s the way we learnt. We need to spin to beat the bat,” he added.
According to Muralitharan, batting against spinners in the IPL is similar to preparing against throwdown specialists since it all comes down to getting in the ball’s path and hitting it.
“If you are a really good spinner, if you can spin the ball, then you have a chance to beat them. But if you can’t spin, it’s like all the batsmen you see in the practices, (what) they do with the throwdowns and hit sixes,” he said.
“It looks like a throwdown bowler bowling at you and you are getting into the line and hitting. That’s the way the batsmen are playing. But if you spin, their eyes open. (They are forced to think) ‘oh, it’s spinning and I’m missing it’.”
Muralitharan continued, “It’s very difficult to teach (spin bowling). It has to come from them. But there are all coming in at the age of professional level. When you come one level higher, you have to improve their game. So some people do, some people go down so it’s very difficult to come here in the IPL and improve spinners.”
In response to a question about how he and Australian great Shane Warne would handle a batting-dominated game, Muralitharan stated that they would not have been so costly.
“See, we would have turned the ball but we would have not made a big dent. We could have got like one or two wickets maybe. They would (still) have scored 40 runs (off us) easily because wickets are so good,” he said.
“Shane Warne was also a freak because he could spin the ball and he could do wonders. (But) the game has changed. We can’t compare eras. The way the players bat, the mentality of the players… these are the things that have changed.”
“We can’t think about the past. Okay, we are greats from our time but now these people are greats because that is the way the game has gone,” he added.
The only way to balance the battle between bat and ball, according to Muralitharan, is to produce fair wickets.
“If we can give fair wickets… but then the spectators will be bored. Cricket followers and cricketers who are very young; the 20-20 followers are very entertainment (oriented). They want to see fours and sixes so that is why the tournament is built like that and (with that) extra player to come and bat and not (let teams) go (for) lower scores,” he said.
“It’s an entertainment. This is not looking (that) you are developing a cricketer or not. It is a big business at the moment, right? Sponsors and everything…” Muralitharan said, adding that the bowlers would be able to catch-up in a season or two.
