Muttiah Muralitharan's landmark may well stand the test of time

EIGHT hundred Test Match wickets; it is almost incredible. I am old enough to have seen Fred Trueman become the first man to claim his three-hundredth Test scalp (Neil Hawke, caught by Colin Cowdrey in the slips) at The Oval in 1964.

Nobody before him had taken as many as 250; Richie Benaud was next with 248. Asked if he thought his record would ever be beaten, Fred replied, "if anybody does, he'll be bloody tired".

Now people are asking the same question about Muttiah Muralitharan's record 800. It will certainly last for a good many years, for there is no one within sight of it. The next in the list are Makahya Ntini (390), Harbhajan Singh (355), Daniel Vettori (325) and Danesh Kaneria (258).

Whether anyone ever catches Murali will depend first on how much Test cricket is played. Murali has played 133 Test matches, Shane Warne 145 for his 708 wickets. One may well wonder with the proliferation of Twenty20 (kids' cricket) tournaments whether anyone will ever again play as many Tests as Warne, let alone take as many wickets. Incidentally Trueman played only 67 Tests for his final total of 307 wickets. More remarkably still, SF Barnes took 189 wickets in a mere 27 Tests.

Since he played his last Test in 1913, there surely can't be anyone alive who saw him bowl in a Test match. Those who played with and against him, or only watched him, were all but unanimous that he was the greatest bowler of all time. Don Bradman thought Bill O'Reilly was probably a greater bowler because, unlike Barnes, he had the googly in his armoury. Barnes's sardonic response was, "I never needed it".

Extrapolation - multiplying Barnes's Tests played and wickets taken by 5 - gives you 135 Tests (two more than Murali, ten fewer than Warne) and 945 wickets, many more than either of the two modern masters. So perhaps he was indeed the greatest ever. You can prove anything by statistics.

Which was greater: Murali or Warne? People will argue this for years. Some of the figures point in Warne's favour. So, for instance, Murali took 166 of his wickets against the Test minnows, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, Warne a mere 17. Then again, Murali took some 61 per cent of his wickets playing at home, and, though he was also very successful in England, his record in Australia was poor: 12 wickets at 75 runs each. Warne was for the most part equally effective home and abroad, though his record in India was as poor as Murali's in Australia.

Then, if Warne required more Tests to take fewer wickets, this was partly because he faced stiffer competition in his own side. Glenn McGrath (563 Test wickets) and Jason Gillespie (259) quite often left Warne with little to do and little chance of taking wickets. Murali's only rival/effective assistant in the Sri Lankan side has been Chaminda Vaas (359). Often the pair of them seemed to have to carry their team's attack without much assistance from anyone. Of course this gave Murali more opportunities.

In a dozen fewer Tests he bowled almost 4,000 more balls than Warne did. But it also imposed a greater strain on him. If he had an off-day, Sri Lanka struggled. He had very few off-days.

Both displayed character in adversity. Warne's troubles were largely of his own making (marital infidelity, a ban for taking a slimming pill, resentment of authority). Murali had to cope with the questioning of his bowling action, being called more than once in Australia for throwing. Various trials imposed by the ICC cleared him - he had been born with a deformity of the elbow and was double-jointed in his right wrist. Yet some continued to doubt him; Michael Parkinson used to call him "McChuckalot". Murali was the more remarkable. Warne was an orthodox wrist-spinner, if one with an unusual power of spin. Murali was like no off-spinner before him (and later invented his doosra, which may be called the off-spinner's googly). Warne arguably made a greater contribution to the game, for wrist-spinning, at least outside the Indian sub-continent, had seemed a moribund art before he came on the scene. This was so even in Australia, with its quasi-apostolic succession of wrist-spinners - Hordern, Mailey, Grimmett, O'Reilly, Benaud. Several had been tried in the 30 years between Benaud and Warne; none had fully established himself. In England of course wrist-spinners have long been regarded as a dangerous luxury. The absurdity of this delusion was on display every time Shane Warne took the ball in his hand in an Ashes Test.

One thing is sure. Whatever the future of Test cricket, there are people now young who in 50 years will be telling their grandchildren, "ah but you should have seen Warne and Murali. Now that was bowling, there's nobody to touch them today."

Quite so. Time gilds everything. Yes, of course, Warne and Murali have been very great bowlers, but better than Richie Benaud and Jim Laker? I'm not so sure.