Australia’s wily leg-spinner Shane Warne said on Saturday all Test scalps were important and that he had not blasted Muttiah Muralitharan for taking easy wickets.
Warne, who was quoted as saying earlier this year that competitors like Sri Lankan off-spinner Muralitharan had got a lot of ”cheap wickets”, said he had been quoted out of context then.
”I did say that players like Murali had taken a lot of wickets against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe whereas I have only played one Test against Zimbabwe,” said Warne, here for a two-Test series.
”But I did not mean to say that others were going after cheap wickets as had been made out to be,” said Warne, the world’s leading bowler in Tests with 674 scalps in 138 matches.
”As a batsman or a bowler your role is to go out there and try to get the maximum runs and wickets against the opposition, whatever it is,” he added.
Muralitharan is the second most successful bowler in Tests after Warne, with 611 wickets in 103 matches.
But his tally includes 87 in 14 matches against Zimbabwe and 50 in six against Bangladesh, the two weakest teams playing Tests.
Warne has just six wickets in a solitary match against Zimbabwe and has yet to play a Test against Bangladesh. – Sapa-AFP