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Friday December 23, 2005

Warne’s ‘cheap’ slur against Muttiah annoys Sri Lanka great

COLOMBO: Former Sri Lanka captain Arjuna Ranatunga yesterday slammed record-breaking spinner Shane Warne for suggesting that rivals like Muttiah Muralitharan benefited by taking “cheap” wickets.

“Shane tries to be larger than the game and life and expects a lot of credit for his performances. He thinks there's no better bowler than him,” Arjuna said.

The Australian leg-spinner said earlier this week that his world record tallies of 651 career wickets and 87 in a calendar year will not last long because other bowlers got a lot of wickets against weaker opponents.

Without naming Sri Lankan Muttiah, his nearest rival with 584 wickets, Warne said: “There's a lot more cricket being played these days and you have teams like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh in there, with some teams playing them a lot more (than others).

“I've never played a Test against Bangladesh and only one against Zimbabwe, but there are some teams out there that play them a lot.

“Some blokes bowl at one end all day against those sort of countries and take lots of wickets. I'm sure that whoever those people are, they might get the record.”

The Australian newspaper, which quoted Warne, said: “It doesn't take a sudoku expert or a Da Vinci Code sleuth to work out who 'those people' are.”

Muttiah has taken more wickets (89) against Test minnows Zimbabwe than any other nation. The off-spinner also has 34 wickets in four Tests against Bangladesh – an average of more than eight wickets a match.

Warne will play his first two Tests against Bangladesh when Australia visit the South Asian nation in April. Sri Lanka will also tour Bangladesh in February-March. – AFP

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