Muttiah Muralitharan Throws Brian Lara a Fresh Challenge in Masters Champions League

The world's leading wicket-taker versus the man who has the highest score in an innings in international cricket. The stage is set for the ultimate contest between ball and bat as Muttiah Muralitharan dreams of Brian Lara's wicket once again.

The inaugural edition of the Masters Champions League in January-February will provide the perfect platform for two legends of the game to go head-on once more. Both in their 40s, Murali, who had taken a record 800 Test wickets, has had limited success against Lara, who continues to hold the record for the highest Test score of 400 not out. 

In 20 ODIs, Muralitharan dismissed Lara only once. In eight Tests, the Lankan off-spinner, has got Lara five times at an average of 56.80. 

The MCL, a T20 tournament for retired cricketers, will see an array of legends who will renew their rivalries in UAE from January 28-February 13, 2016. While Muralitharan will lead Gemini Arabians, the Prince of Cricket from Trinidad will captain Leo Lions.

"Brian and Sachin (Tendulkar) were great players. Brian is 45-46 and I am three years younger…may be, I will get over him this time," Muralitharan said in an interview.

The concept of former stars competing against each other is slowly gaining ground. The All-Stars Series, a brain child of Tendulkar and Shane Warne, was quite a success in the United States recently. The MCL is targeting the huge Indian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan population in the Gulf nations.

Interestingly, Muralitharan's team also has another off-spinning legend, Saqlain Mushtaq from Pakistan. It will be interesting to see who gets Lara's wicket.

Australia show no mercy to wanton West Indies

Towards the end of Australia's latest gargantuan first innings in a summer of batting gluttony, the West Indies opener Rajendra Chandrika was struck a painful blow on the wrist by an Adam Voges stroke. Quickly to his aid was the hosts' team doctor Peter Brukner. Chandrika recovered and later batted; it was the only moment's mercy offered by the Australians to their hapless quarry all day.

More representative was the bowling of Peter Siddle, James Pattinson and Nathan Lyon, all of whom harried their opponents relentlessly and were rewarded with regular victims. Lyon's loop, Pattinson's reverse swing and Siddle's accuracy made for a highly complementary attack, augmented by the stingy Josh Hazlewood.

By the close they had reduced the West Indies to a forlorn 6 for 89 in response to 551, leaving open the possibility of another follow on, another Australian innings victory and another three-day Test match. Even if the shorter turnaround to the New Year's Test in Sydney stops Steven Smith from making such a call, not even the most staunchly patriotic Australian supporter can take too much joy from ritual executions of such lopsided brutality.

A second day gathering of 40,416 was the sort of figure both Cricket Australia and the MCC would have been happy about. Nevertheless it was very apparent how on each day the crowds thinned after tea, as though they could not put themselves through the recurring spectacle of one of cricket's domineers beating up on an opponent in dreadful disrepair. For all the rhetoric of Curtly Ambrose and the good intentions of Jason Holder, there is very little within the power of this touring team to avoid problems that have built up over decades of neglect, infighting and divided loyalties.

The first half of day two had Voges and Smith batting without risk or any apparent danger. Their undefeated stand of 223 followed up the strong work of Joe Burns and Usman Khawaja on Boxing Day, and contributed to the statistical mountain being built by an Australian side growing daily under the leadership of their new captain.

Smith showed evidence that a rest had helped his sore knee in compiling his sixth hundred for 2015, while Voges continued on the merry way he began at Bellerive Oval in the first Test. He has now made 375 runs in the series without being dismissed, while his career average against the West Indies has reached a scarcely credible 542.

Though Smith's century was marked by a subdued celebration, but Voges was far more animated in marking his fourth hundred of a debut Test year in which he has passed 1000 runs in a mere 12 matches. Only Sir Donald Bradman, Neil Harvey and Sid Barnes managed to get there faster.

Together they ensured Australia's bowlers had plenty of runs to defend once again, and after Chandrika and Kraigg Brathwaite resisted briefly they made steady then increasingly swift progress through the thin remnants of what was once a galaxy of Caribbean batting riches.

Brathwaite's hands were too low and firm to prevent a catch squeezed to short leg when Lyon found bounce and spin. Chandrika was too generous in allowing Pattinson's in-ducker to strike him in front without offering a shot and then optimistically reviewing the decision. Marlon Samuels' wretched tour then gained another stanza when he was pinned seemingly in front by Pattinson for a duck and declined to review a ball that EagleEye had passing over the stumps.

Very nearly yorked first ball, Jermain Blackwood played a few smart strokes before he was reprieved when the inevitably grey of television replays meant Burns' apparent clean catch at square leg was overruled by the third umpire Ian Gould. The injustice of that decision was not to linger; Blackwood bunting a return catch to Lyon and Denesh Ramdin flicking a clearer catch to Burns before Siddle snaked a straightening ball around Holder's dead bat to make it six wickets in the final session.

If Voges and Smith did not pile up runs at quite the same rate seen in Hobart, their security at the crease was seemingly unaffected by more patient spells from several West Indian bowlers. Both batsmen gave up edges, Smith an inside edge to fine leg when attempting to force Kemar Roach through the off side, and Voges skewing Carlos Brathwaite past slips 15 minutes before lunch.

The MCG surface was flat and easy paced for batting when Smith and Voges resumed, intent upon stretching the hosts' tally into an intimidating region for the West Indies. There were attractive strokes to be viewed by a crowd that grew steadily, but precious little tension between bat and ball.

A reminder of the vast gap between the teams arrived when Australia knocked off their 1000th run for the series, all at a cost of just seven wickets. The scoreboard flashed a reminder that both sides have still got two DRS referrals in their pockets. It is perhaps the only area in which Australia and the West Indies have ever had parity in the series.

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Uttar Pradesh seal quarterfinal berth; MP stay alive

Uttar Pradesh rounded off their group engagements with a five-wicket win over Goa to assure themselves of a top of the table finish in Group D. Umang Sharma stroked an unbeaten 85 helped UP chase down 219 with five wickets in hand and plenty to spare.

Umang was complemented at the top by Saurabh Dubey (35) and Suresh Raina (29) before Shadab Jakati's three quick wickets threatened to take the game away from them. But Rinku Singh held his composure to make an unbeaten 51 as UP won with 13.3 overs to spare. Reagon Pinto's 66 and Sagun Kamat's 57 were the major talking points for Goa with the bat. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Dubey, Piyush Chawla and Raina picked up two wickets each.

Harpreet Singh's third successive fifty helped Madhya Pradesh keep their quarter-final hopes alive as they beat Bengal by five wickets in Rajkot. Harpreet made 71 as MP chased down 263 with 19 balls to spare.

Rajat Patidar, the opener, laid the foundation of the chase with a 78-ball 63, while Anand Singh Bais made an unbeaten run-a-ball 54 to steer them home after the dismissal of Harpreet. That meant Sayan Mondal's 88 that helped Bengal put up a competitive score went in vain. Puneet Datey, Chandrakant Sakhure and Jalaj Saxena picked up two wickets apiece for MP. A second loss in three matches meant Bengal's qualifying route to the quarter-final hinged on plenty of mathematical possibilities should they win their last two matches.

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Hussey leads Thunder to first win over Sixers

Michael Hussey will be a coaching consultant with Australia at the World Twenty20 in India next year, but the first night of the 2015-16 Big Bash League showed that he still has plenty to offer as a T20 batsman as well. Hussey scored an unbeaten 80 from 59 balls to lead Sydney Thunder to their first win over their cross-town rivals Sydney Sixers in the eight meetings between the teams, a convincing 36-run victory at Sydney's Showground Stadium.

Hussey ensured that the Thunder posted a competitive 4 for 158 after he won the toss and chose to bat, and regular wickets throughout the Sixers innings, including three each to Andre Russell and Shane Watson, kept the Thunder on top throughout. The innings petered out and the Sixers were dismissed for 122 in the 50th over, opener Michael Lumb (34) the only batsman who made it past the teens.

In his first match for the Thunder, having played with Melbourne Renegades last summer, Russell was especially key with the ball. He delivered two quick, accurate yorkers that lit up the bails and bowled Brad Haddin and Nic Maddinson to leave the Thunder at 2 for 37, and from there they never really recovered. His economy was also outstanding, his four overs earning him 3 for 13.

Watson also chipped in with 3 for 13 from two overs; having had Jordan Silk caught in the deep he added Sean Abbott, who was caught and bowled, and Trent Lawford, who was bowled. While Russell and Watson picked up three wickets each, Jacques Kallis had also made an important breakthrough by trapping Lumb lbw, although the ball appeared to have pitched outside leg stump.

That ended Lumb's chances of helping the Sixers to victory after he earlier dropped one of the easiest chances imaginable on a cricket field. Watson was on 8 when he chipped a sitter off the bowling of Abbott; Lumb, at mid-off, had only to watch the ball into his hands, but somehow allowed the ball to bounce off his abdomen and could not grasp it. He was lucky the drop cost only eight runs as Watson was bowled by Nathan Lyon for 16.

But there was enough batting in the Thunder line-up to post a strong total. Batting at No.3 and having walked to the crease in the second over, Hussey seemed to set himself the task of batting through the innings, and he did so with class. He lofted Jackson Bird over wide long-off for the first six of the tournament and added three more through his innings.

Twenty runs came off the 17th over of the innings as Hussey and Ben Rohrer (30 off 20) lifted the tempo towards the end. Hussey's efforts proved more than adequate to end a run of seven straight victories for the Sixers over his side and ensured a perfect start for the Thunder, who have yet to finish above the bottom two in any BBL tournament.

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