Friday, January 11, 2002 These are heady days for Muttiah Muralitharan. Test scalps are easier than a stroll to the barber's shop. Over the next few days - fitness and weather permitting - this bug-eyed and bent-elbowed Tamil boy from Kandy will become the youngest man to 400 Test wickets, and the quickest. With one flick of his wrist, when he moves from number 399 to 400, Murali will dethrone two kings of the cricket world. Sir Richard Hadlee reached the milestone in only 80 Tests and Shane Warne was barely 31 years old, yet Murali will undercut them both. He is 29, and his 395 wickets so far have come in a sensational 71 Tests.

There are many secrets to Murali's success, but one that stands out above all others. It is never straightforward emerging from a minority community and becoming a national hero. Harder still to face the end of your career - and the death of your dreams - because of a quirk of anatomy. Only a player with boundless enthusiasm could survive such prejudice.

Murali's joie de vivre was in full flow last week. Nine wickets into Zimbabwe's first innings, the perfect ten beckoned. Umpires and players stretched the day's play so that Murali could out-spin Jim Laker. But Murali's panache got the better of him. He forgot about the record, braved a difficult catch and dislocated a finger. You knew then that it was not meant to be.

Disappointed? Not Murali. Ten wickets will be his one day, he said. Deluded? Probably not. But the post-match press conference suggested that Murali's enthusiasm had overtaken reason. Sri Lanka are not far behind Australia, he claimed. And this on the evidence of comprehensive home wins over West Indies and Zimbabwe and a narrow one over India. Since they have also lost at home to England, and mostly suffered abroad, a more sober analysis would reach a different conclusion.

Comparing yourself with Australia is a hazardous pastime. South Africa and Pakistan have both disintegrated playing that game, and Sri Lanka would do well to give such fancies a wide berth. Lions at home and cubs abroad is the Indian way, and, if anything, Sri Lanka are becoming more Indian than the Indians, even down to fine detail: a formidable batting line-up on slow pitches, and a one- or two-man bowling attack. An assault on Australia's crown is doomed without a firmer platform.

But then Murali can be forgiven his flights of fancy. Without them he would not have become a record-breaker and Sri Lanka would still be a humble middle-ranking team. It is this eagerness to reach beyond the realms of possibility that makes Murali a wonder of the cricket world.

Kamran Abbasi, born in Lahore, brought up in Rotherham, is assistant editor of the British Medical Journal. His Asian View appears on Wisden.com every Friday.

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