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Murali eyes January return

Muttiah Muralitharan flew to Australia late on Monday night to meet with his Melbourne-based surgeon, Dr David Young, who will assess his shoulder's recovery and indicate when he can resume bowling

Charlie Austin
Charlie Austin
23-Nov-2004


Muralitharan will aim to resume cricket in January © Getty Images
Muttiah Muralitharan flew to Australia late on Monday night to meet with his Melbourne-based surgeon, Dr David Young, who will assess his shoulder's recovery and indicate when he can resume bowling.
Muralitharan has been laid off for three months since pulling out of the second Test against South Africa after the build-up of a painful cyst around the nerves in his shoulder. Young drained the cyst and cleaned up some of the cartilage around the joint.
The targeted comeback date is the second Test against New Zealand in late January, but Muralitharan will probably be urged to err on the side of caution and not rush back into the fray. If he is to play in the second Test then he will need to resume competitive cricket in early January.
Muralitharan has not bowled a ball in three months, but has been stepping up his weights work in the gym and claims to be in good shape despite a hectic few weeks of globe-trotting to raise funds for charity, pick up various awards and represent Sri Lanka at the World Travel Market.
The ICC Cricket Committee's decision to recommend a flat-rate 15-degree level of tolerance, which will probably be introduced early next year, has only increased Murali's desire to return to international cricket soon.
The recent biomechanical testing on international bowlers, carried out during the ICC Champions Trophy and secretly during first-class matches in Australia, has proved that despite the optical illusion of chucking, Murali's bent-arm action is sounder than several current international bowlers.
Muralitharan's arm-bend for his stock offbreak is just five degrees, while his doosra was recorded at 14 - although a new straighter approach to the crease has reduced the flex to 10.2 degrees. This is significantly less than several of the bowlers tested so far.
The tests carried out in the Champions Trophy have shown that fast bowlers and spinners from Australia, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, England, West Indies, Kenya and Zimbabwe are exceeding the current tolerance levels, some of them by several degrees.
This reality will leave Muralitharan with a difficult decision as to whether to use his doosra - which was technically not banned by the ICC but voluntarily discarded by Muralitharan himself - should he be able to return before the throwing law is modified.