Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting has urged Muttiah Muralitharan to tour Australia with Sri Lanka in July, saying the local cricket fans would welcome him with open arms.
Ponting sent out his appeal to Murali on his return home from the ill-fated Zimbabwe tour yesterday.
Reports from Colombo over the weekend said the Sri Lankan spin wizard had not changed his mind over quitting the upcoming tour of Australia, but he was under pressure to do so.
Sri Lankan cricket officials said Test cricket's greatest wicket-taker had not officially told the authorities about changing his mind after Australian Prime Minister John Howard upset him by calling him a "chucker."
But Ponting made a plea to Murali to put aside his ill-feeling and come and play against the Test champions Australia.
"I'd love to see him here. He's a fantastic player and opponent, and he's a great competitor," Ponting said.
Murali recently broke retired West Indian Courtney Walsh's world record of 519 wickets, with Australia's Shane Warne in close pursuit.
But Murali has been under scrutiny since English match referee Chris Broad reported his suspect action on the "doosra", a leg-break delivered with an off-break action, to the International Cricket Council in March.
His presence would certainly add spice to the two-Test winter series with Murali (527 wickets) and Warne (517 wickets) going head to head.
"I'm sure the Australian public would love to see him here," Ponting said.
"Let's hope he tours. It would be a great challenge for us if he does because he's a very, very good bowler."
Ponting has also defended Australia's decision to proceed with their three one-day matches in Zimbabwe after the two-test series had been called off.
"I've got no doubt it was the right decision to tour Zimbabwe," Ponting said at Sydney airport yesterday.
"We went there to do our job, which is to play cricket.
"We didn't get involved in anything political but that's not saying we turned a blind eye."
Zimbabwe have been forced to pick a second-string team since last month when 15 white players including former captain Heath Streak made themselves unavailable over what they see as racially driven selection policies.
The African side has lost five one-day internationals and two test matches against Sri Lanka and suffered three defeats in one-day series against Australia which finished on Saturday.
Two scheduled tests against Australia were called off because of Zimbabwe's problems in fielding a test-strength side.
Australia won the three one-day matches by seven wickets, 139 runs and eight wickets.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later
RSS