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| Wednesday, 1 September 2004 |
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Murali has a high threshold by Dr Quintus de Zylva Muthiah Muralitharan is just thirty two years old and expects to play international cricket for at least four more years. Murali took this in to calculation when he opted for a more long-lasting "cure" of his recurring shoulder problem. Repeated intra-articular injections of cortisone and pain-killers had eased the soreness temporarily. Murali felt that he needed something more - even if it meant that he was going to be out of the limelight for some months. And even if his friend Shane Warne was to be given the chance of wearing that crown of being the world's highest test wicket taker temporarily. Murali underwent reconstructive arthroscopic surgery at the Avenue Hospital in Melbourne on Monday 16th August. David Young assisted by Greg Hoy placed two Linvatec knotless anchors to hold a superior labrum anterior-posterior (SLAP) lesion in place. The ganglion cyst was decompressed by an ultrasound guided 16 gauge needle. Murali woke up an hour after surgery, slept the night on an uncomfortable hospital bed, and was discharged less than twenty-four hours later after the last dose of an intravenous antibiotic. Since the operation Murali has taken just two 500 mg Paracetamol tablets for the post-operative pain in his right shoulder! He must surely have a high pain threshold by any standard. Such intra-articular surgery more often demands higher analgesia in the form of Morphine or Pethidine. But at review 12 days later, on Friday 27th August, Murali was able to go through all the movements of this shoulder joint without any pain and with only the slightest restriction in movement. A repeat MRI has shown that healing is well advanced and everything is now back in place! So much for his high threshold for physical pain. Murali has demonstrated this same high threshold when he has been subjected to psychological abuse too. He has taken the abusive written and spoken word without a murmur and without any tranquillizers. He has believed in himself and has been confident that his action one day will be proven beyond any doubt as being legitimate. Amit Varna - managing editor of Wisden Cricinfo in India has said, after viewing the Channel 4 documentary in which Murali bowls with an elbow brace, and after reading Mark Nicholas's account of shooting the original film with Murali - "But Muttiah Muralitharan believed in himself, and now, so must we". He went on to say "John Howard's insensitive comments about Murali made sure that Murali opted out of Sri Lanka's recent tour of Australia". History will for ever tell us that Shane Warne was thus able to equal Murali's record but that he couldn't break it in Cairns! What if Murali had played in Darwin and Cairns? Murali takes no comfort in the fact that Andrew Wilkie, the former analyst with the Office of National Assessments, who courageously resigned over the Australian Government's handling of intelligence prior to the invasion of Iraq, has said that Mr. Howard was "habitually dishonest" - referring to Mike Scrafton's recent revelation about the children-overboard affair. Murali's high tolerance of uneducated intemperate comments that labelled him a chucker has shown time and again that he won't quit in the face of this verbal abuse. His pain threshold is high. Charles Randall said, after facing up to Murali bowling with the brace, that even the doosra was "Legal to a widely accepted norm". Rohit Brijnath, a sportswriter based in Australia, writing in the June 2004 Wisden Asia Cricket, said "It is hard to deny that Murali has been persecuted... for nine years since he was first called in Australia in 1995-96. He has endured a scrutiny beyond comparison in modern cricket". S. Skandakumar proposing a toast to Murali recently said, "We all know that it is the tree which bears the finest fruits that attracts the largest number of stones - in that respect, Murali is no exception". We are grateful to the Almighty, that having bestowed upon Murali this God given ability to spin the ball, he has also bestowed upon him an exceptionally high threshold for pain -both physical and psychological. And as Skanda concluded "may he continue to walk ahead, in the path of cricketing success, as he has done in the past, with his head held high and his feet firmly on the ground". |
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