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New Delhi, Former Sri Lanka spinner Muttiah Muralitharan has urged Saeed Ajmal to stay strong despite his ban from the international cricket.
Murali is the highest Test wicket-taker in history, with 800 scalps, but he also had to overcome ‘chucking allegations and testing several times. With Ajmal at the top of his game, he was banned this month for breaching the International Cricket Council (ICC) regulations by significant margins, and Murali feels only someone with the strongest desire to return will recover. Ajmal, 36, is in a race to remodel his action and get retested successfully before the World Cup in February. Murali dealt with a similar race as a youngster, and returned to help his side win the 1996 World Cup.
The former Sri Lankan spinner said, “It is difficult to say how he (Ajmal) would or should cope with it, because it depends on your personality, how strong you are in tacking obstacles that may appear along the way. He said that in such situations only mental strength is a person’s ally. “In my case, I was naturally upset when the allegations were first made against me. After all, you’re only a human! However, I believed in myself. I wanted to prove it that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I cleared around six-seven Tests during my almost two-decade old career,” he added.
