Harbhajan Singh And Muttiah Muralitharan Feels the Standard of Batting Has Gone Down Considerably

Former world-class spinner Harbhajan Singh and Muttiah Muralitharan are of the opinion that the quality of batting has gone down considerably in the contemporary cricket. They feel that even an average spinner can get a bagful of wickets in the Test cricket.

All the bowlers needed to do nowadays was to bowl maiden overs and be smart with their field placements to get the wickets of the opposition batters.

Muralitharan, who is the only bowler in world cricket to take 800 Test wickets stated that he had no clue on how to bowl at the Indian and the Pakistani batsmen when he started off his career.

“When I started bowling, I had no clue how to get them out, they used good defence. I was taking five-wicket hauls, but still, they were scoring against me. The batting talent for a spin was there because they were so good at it,” Muralitharan said.

Muttiah Muralitharan and Harbhajan Singh feels that the batting standard has gone down considerably

“These days if you are a spin bowler, you just have to bowl maiden overs, and you get a five-wicket haul,” Muralitharan said at the show called “Salaam Cricket”.

Harbhajan, who bagged 417 wickets during his Test career in 103 Tests agreed with Muralitharan that the quality of batting has gone down quite considerably.

“I agree with Murali sir… the quality of batting has definitely gone down. Last four years, none of the Indian batsmen have scored more runs (against spin) than Pujara – when he gets out, any spinner who just rolls his arms over can get wickets. Our batsmen are also not learning to bat against spin,” Muralitharan asserted.

 

“Nowadays it’s all about hitting. If it is rough out there, all I need is put my fielder on the right spot and bowl two maidens, and then they will do something,” Harbhajan said.

Meanwhile former Pakistan leg-spinner Abdul Qadir said that players of the yesteryears relied on their technique and thought of staying at the crease for long period of times to get runs.

“Players earlier thought of staying at the wicket and get runs. Some players cannot do that now. Like Kapil [Dev] was an attacking and yet got so many runs. I think personally a coach and captain should not force anybody to change their game. Because I feel it will be a loss in the end,” he concluded.