There was no fear to bowl to Sachin Tendulkar as he couldn't hurt me like Sehwag: Muttiah Muralitharan

Legendary Sri Lanka cricketer Muttiah Muralitharan ended his career with a landmark 800 wickets in Tests. He was simply brilliant with his variations in spin bowling and most of the batsmen literally couldn’t read him. However, there were a few who troubled him throughout his career. Murali has named Virender Sehwag and Brian Lara as the only two batsmen who read him and played him well through his career.

Muralitharan praised Lara a lot but admitted that he feared bowling to Sehwag and even the fields set while bowling to him were somewhat defensive. However, when asked about bowling to Sachin Tendulkar, the legendary spinner stated that the Mumbai batter didn’t hurt him like Sehwag used to and it was fine bowling to him.

“There was no fear to bowl to Sachin because he couldn’t hurt me like Sehwag. That feeling I know because Sehwag can hurt you. Sachin won’t hurt but it was very tough to get him out,” Murali said while speaking to ESPNCricinfo.

Sehwag’s attitude was to score 150 runs in two hours in a Test

Muttiah Muralitharan recalled playing against Virender Sehwag and pointed out that his attitude was to score quickly irrespective of the situation. For the same reason, the off-spinner used to set defensive fields for the Indian opener.

“For Sehwag, we used to set defensive fields because I knew he would take a chance. Unlike Brian, he won’t respect. He was confident that on his day he can attack anyone. So what we used to do is go defensive and wait for him to make a mistake. What Virender made sure is to score 150 runs in just two hours of play in a Test, that was his attitude. So by the time he got out playing his shots after lunch, he would’ve already scored 150 runs,” Murali added.

Talking about Sachin Tendulkar, Muralitharan then added the master blaster used to protect his wicket well against him being the most compact batsman technically which is why it was tough to get him out.