By almost universal consensus, Muttiah Muralitharan is one of the nicest blokes to play cricket. And yet, he has been at the centre of numerous controversies, none of them of his own making.

Viewed purely through numbers, Muralitharan is a giant performer and is in the unique position of holding the records for most wickets in One Day Internationals as well as Test matches. In fact, what Murali has done in bowling is akin to what Tendulkar has done in batting.

However, most people view Murali through a prism -- fair or unfair -- and questions about the legality of his action have continued to haunt him throughout his career. He has been cleared numerous times -- by biomechanical experts, by the ICC and by independent observers -- but the doubters refuse to be silenced.

He has been called for chucking by umpires in Australia, and been cast aspersions on every time he has walked out on the field.

What nobody can dispute though, is the fact that Murali weaves magic with a cricket ball in his hands. He has flummoxed generations of batsmen with his prodigious spin, subtle variations and often been a one-man army for the Sri Lankan bowling.

Although his talent was never in doubt, Murali really flowered a few years after his debut in 1992. From 1998 onwards, his stats tell the story of a stunning decade. He averaged 20.80 in Test matches and 21.23 in ODIs, picking up over 1000 international wickets (653 in Tests and 405 in ODIs).

In contrast to his success all over the world, Murali has never managed to replicate his feats in Australia. That may be partly due to the fact that for much of his career, Australia have had the best international team, but it is also largely due to the barracking he has had to endure at the hands of the Australian press, players and public. The only other place where Murali has not done well is in India.

Amongst the deluge of the peaks of numbers that Murali has scaled, one startling fact is that he bowls more than 55 overs per Test on an average. And that figure has come after a career that has so far spanned 17 years and 131 Tests - during the early part of which he wasn't the team's strike bowler.

It has been alleged that Murali has picked up a lot of 'cheap' wickets by playing often against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, but even if you exclude his statistics against these two teams, he still has world-beating figures of 612 Test wickets at an average of 24.73 -- which incidentally is better than Shane Warne's career average of 25.41.

The spin wizard signed off Test cricket in 2010, with a wicket off his last ball, propelling his tally to 800 wickets. Fittingly, the final script had tinges of romance. The ODI flame though kept flickering until the 2011 World Cup. Murali has also featured in T20 leagues across the world including the IPL, BBL and CPL.

by Saurabh Somani and Deivarayan Muthu