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Sri Lanka’s Muthayya Muralitharan is the world’s best off spinner today and Pakistan’s Wasim Akram is a fine left arm fast medium bowler. Akram has taken more than 500 wikcets in one day cricket while Muralitharan has taken more than 700 wickets in test matches. Spin bowling has been tha secret of asian players. India forced other countries to learn the magics in spin bowling. India harvested lots of wickets by this technique. India produced many great spin bowlers who were later considered as masters in spin bowling. Harbhajan sing is the current Indian spin bowler for India. He is taking wickets on a regular basis. His ability to reduce the run rate has been used by India to win matches. Pakistan also produced some spin bowlers. Other foreign nations were not able to master this skill well until recently. They were forced to learn this bowling trick to survive in Asian pitches. 

India forced the other countries to understand the spin bowling and Sri Lanka started the trend of opening innings with an explosive batsman like Jayasurya which inspired other countries to do the same. The variety in Pakistan’s bowling forced other countries to take a note. Reverse swing is also said to be the contribution of Pakistan. In this, the bowler maintains the shine on one side of the bowl by rubbing the leather on his trousers and allows the shine on the other part of the bowl to wear off. It is their effort to pitch the worn off section of the ball on to the pitch so that the ball turns the was\y they want it to. The movement of the ball is influenced because one half of the ball has shine on it and the other has worn off and the bowler tries to move the bowl as he has practiced. Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram were regarded adapt at bowling reverse swing and it is said that Imran Khan had taught them the trick. The art has now reached other countries as well. Their fast bowl...

The Americans wonder over the Britisher's love for cricket but they are even more surprised over the passion the inspires cricket in India. India is the only country in the world where more than one lakh spectators come to watch a match at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata even if India is not one of the players;and a half of whom get disappointed on not getting an entry but still keep hovering around in the hope of gaining entry in the stadium. The situation is more or less the same at other places like Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Ahmedabad and Bangalore. Now the popularity of one-day cricket has broken all spectator records. Even counterfeit tickets get sold and people are willing to buy the ticket at double or thrice its normal price. Some people, through these black deeds, become rich overniht. Seeing the passion of Indians for cricket, even the britishers are amazed that the magic of the British Raj is so pervasive in India. The Indians themselves accept that among the legacies left...

Sri Lanka got their test status at the Lords test in 1982 but it lost the match. Despite this, its players improved everybody with their positive play. The Sri Lankan players were popular in England even before they had got test status and were playing county cricket. After being granted test status, cricket gained in status in the country and its players were filled with great enthusiasm. From 1981- 1982 to 1982- 1983, Sri Lanka played one test match each against England and India,three against Pakistan and two against New Zealand. Of these 7 test matches played, it could not even win one, while it had to lose 5 and two test matches were ended in draw. In the 10 years between 1981 to 1990, Sri Lanka played 30 test matches which was less than the number of test matches played by any country in the same period. During the same period, other nations had played thrice or twice the matches played by Sri Lanka. The players of Sri Lankan cricket came only up to the standard in 1990. Arjun R...

Sunil Gavaskar of India was not only the first batsman to score 10,000 runs in test matches, he was also the first batsman to score the maximum number of runs in Test cricket before Allan Border. The recored for maximum number of centuries was also in his name till Sachin broke that record. Tendulkar has beaten the record with 35 centuries. On the other hand Sachin Tendulkar was the first batsman in one day cricket to score 10,000 runs. The maximum number of runs in One Day matches and Test matches is also I his name. In bowling, before Kapil Dev had become the first bowlerto break Richard Hadlee’s World record of 431 test wickets. It is true that India had performed well in home than at abroad. The reason for this has been our wickets, climate, environment and playing in familiar conditions. Every body faces trouble while playing abroad. If India is not able to play well on the bouncy wickets of New Zealand, Australia and on the movement wickets in England, then these countries also...

Even in spin bowling, the off spin bowled through fingers, the leg spin bowled using wrist, left arm spin and armour bowling are the features of Indian sub-continent. But the British artistry has become ineffective because of one day cricket. Despite the lack of facilities and favourable circumstances, the success of players like Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Jayasurya, Zaheer Abbaz and Wasim Akram is praise worthy. Despite having played on matting wickets, Nayudu played on turf. Gavaskar never got the chance to play fast bowling in India while Kapil Dev never got to bowl on wickets in India that helped fast bowlers. He never had a good opening bowling partner too. Sri Lanka was troubled by political instability and the change of Governments continued even in Pakistan. But still, the three countries continued to dominate the international cricket. They made significant contributions to the world cricket during all these times. They produced some finr players in cricket who were conside...

After the glorious achievements like the series win over West Indies and England in 1971 and the historic victory again over West Indies by scoring 406 runs for the loss of 4 wickets while batting last at Port of Spain,lifting the World cup has been among the glorius achievements of Indian cricket. By then, waving the national flag has started and in 1983, the waving of the tricolour by the spectators at the Lords was a great scene. India was able to achieve all these mile stones in the early ages of Indian cricket only because of the variety in bowling. India stand apart others by its spin bowling magic. Now to have a glance at the one day matches and test played by India between 1980 and 1990, and 1990 to 2000. Between 1980 and 1990, India played 85 test matches. India won 11 and lost 22. The percentage of success in test was 43. Between 1990 and 2000 India played 69 test matches and the percentage of success was 48.55. It measn the percentage of success is increasing for India. I...