Cricket bridges ethnic divide: Murali

COLOMBO: When Sri Lanka''s most popular cricketer Muthiah Muralitharan played a vital role in organising a cricket match in the strife-torn Jaffna recently, there were people who doubted the intentions of the affable cricketer. There were stories that Murali took part in the match to promote his insurance firm and that his sympathies for the Tamils living in Jaffna was just a talk.
That hardly upset Murali. He had been through worse situations and lived with more serious innuendoes in his career to take such things to heart. Instead, he feels it was the best thing that he did in his entire life.
"It hurt me a lot initially, but I remembered what had happened to me when I was called a chucker. I remembered how Arjuna Ranatunga and the board stood by me. I realised that one needs courage and that it comes from self-belief. After that I didn''t care much about it."
How did he get this idea? "After I became a Test cricketer, my dream was to play one game in Jaffna, entertain those people who are denied most good things in life. There is no entertainment for them and no life. Just poverty. We have a moral responsibility to develop these people. Game comes only later. If, as celebrities, we (cricketers) cannot do anything for them, then there''s no use we having such following."
"We should actually be looking at helping them in various other aspects too," says Murali.
According to Murali, it was this attitude of several peace-loving citizens of the island nation which paved the way for the improved situation in the country. "If people talk of peace and community living today, it is because of these few individuals," he says.
If cricket has made rapid strides in Sri Lanka despite the ethnic problem and internecine wars within the nation''s cricket board, it is a reflection on the games'' appeal. And Murali thinks, cricketers have the role of a bonding agent in forging good relations between Tamils and Sinhalese.
But then how did cricket develop so well when things were least conducive? "Until the late 80s we used to play cricket basically for our own entertainment. We never seriously looked at it as a professional sport. But with some good players emerging from the country like Roy Dias and Duleep Mendis, there seemed to be realization that we too can become a Test nation and cash in on the craze for the game here. Our dreams came true as the players took up the game seriously."
Dias and Mendis may have been the people who gave Sri Lanka the direction, but it is players like Ranatunga, Aravinda de Silva and Murali who gave the Sri Lankans their own set of idols. What has really made them so special.
"As for me, God has given me the talent to turn the ball. It''s not something that I have acquired with practice. I found that I was a born spinner when I got into the business of bowling," says Murali.
"I don''t call myself a great bowler, but I have achieved certain things which are creditable. I have still to achieve a lot many things. So you have to keep going as long as you can."
How long is that? "I''m looking at 600 Test wickets and then call it off."