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'Muralitharan said 'Well done, good luck next 3 days'. Little did I know...': Ex-India bowler's meeting with spin wizard
Muttiah Muralitharan is the greatest off-spinner of all time and the leading wicket-taker in Test cricket. So if someone of his calibre praises your and appreciates your bowling, it must mean something, right? Well, apparently not all the time.
The legendary Muttiah Muralitharan is the greatest off-spinner of all time and the leading wicket-taker in Test cricket. So if someone of his calibre praises your and appreciates your bowling, it must mean something, right? Well, apparently not all the time. Former India spinner Nilesh Kulkarni recalled receiving a good luck wish from the great Muralitharan but it was one that went horribly wrong.
Kulkarni, a left-arm spinner, who played three Tests and 10 ODIs between 1997 and 2001, made his India debut during the infamous Test against Sri Lanka at Colombo in1 1997 – the same match where Sri Lanka piled up 952/6 declared and sent the Indian team on a leather hunt. Hoping for an unforgettable debut, Kulkarni would have just that, as he picked up a wicket off the first ball of the match, dismissing Marvan Atapattu out caught behind.
"Marvan (Atapattu) and Sanath (Jayasuriya) were going great guns at the start. We had to bowl around an hour or so and the focus was to get a couple of wickets. I was not hoping to bowl. Rajesh Chauhan was to bowl the last over but Marvan took a single in the last couple of balls of the previous over, which made Sachin (Tendulkar, the captain) change his mind and get a left-arm spinner bowling to a right-hander. While I was changing my fielding position, suddenly he called and asked me to bowl," Kulkarni told Sportstar.
"Since I hadn't had time to prepare, I wasn't really ready. As I was handing the cap to the umpire, he told me I had less than two minutes to bowl the first ball. It was a blessing in disguise that I didn't get enough time to bowl the debut over. All I was thinking of was "don't embarrass yourself, make sure you bowl the right ball and hit the right length so that the debut would be memorable". I just did it. Luckily for me, Marvan was playing a bit of an aggressive innings so he wanted to go after the bowlers and dominate. He went for that cover drive and Nayan Mongia completed the catch."
But as things turned out, that was the only success Kulkarni tasted in the entire match as he ended with figures of 1/195 from 70 overs. At the end of the day, Kulkarni met Muralitharan at the hotel lobby, where the former spinner had a message for him. But has Kulkarni points out, everything from there on, went in the opposite direction.
"I didn't know it was a record," Kulkarni said of the wicket off his first ball. "All of us were happy. The day was called off. We were coming back and I was giving throwdowns to a few batters. I was completely in a casual mood till a few press reporters came down and told me it was a world record and I was the first from India. That's when it hit me that something different had happened in my life. Incidentally, after the day's play, I met Muralitharan at the hotel and he told me: "Well done, good luck for the next three days". Little did I realise that I was not going to get a wicket for the next three days."
The match ended in a draw with a total of 1489 runs scored by both teams across two innings. The pitch at the R Premadasa Stadium came in for severe criticism with Tendulkar, the-then India captain, questioning the nature of the wicket and highlighting whether such pitches were good for the future of Test cricket.
