David Leggat: He may have the record, but is he the best?

What do Muttiah Muralitharan and Sir Richard Hadlee have in common, apart from being current and former world test wicket record holders?

All cricketing anoraks will know both ended their test careers with a wicket.

Hadlee's came at Edgbaston in 1990, his 431st in his 86th test. It was Devon Malcolm, England's hopeless tailender, but even so it was a nice way for the statistically motivated Hadlee to bow out.

Murali rounded off a career, which in several respects might remain unmatched, in the same fashion.

In a lovely piece of symmetry, Sri Lanka needed one wicket to end India's second innings on their march to victory at Galle; the freakish spinner needed one for his 800th. What theatre it was.

You might argue that ending on 799 would have a certain ring to it.

Like Sir Donald Bradman's 99.94 batting average. However you'd bet Murali is happier with that extra one.

So is the amiable man with the permanently bent arm, courtesy of a birth defect, the finest test bowler the game has seen?

It depends on your parameters, and also whether you regard him as the most flagrant flouter of cricket's bowling laws or a freakish bowler who made the most of what nature had left him with.

Debating the legality of Murali's action is pointless. At least three times, he underwent assessments with a variety of mechanisms.

He was passed each time, and once the rule allowing a small degree of flexibility in the arm came in he was home and hosed.

The issue was not whether his arm was straight, but how much it straightened at the moment of delivery. Plenty haven't liked what they've seen and certainly it looked awful, but the decision-makers said he was fine, so end of story.

His numbers were phenomenal. He took 10 wickets or more in a test innings 22 times. Next best are Shane Warne with 10 and Hadlee with nine.

His 800 wickets came from 133 tests; India's fine legspinner Anil Kumble, no slouch himself, played one test less and finished 181 wickets adrift. Second-placed Warne's 708 took 12 tests longer.

Who might challenge Murali? Frankly no one is within cooee.

The next best of those still playing is India's abrasive offspinner Harbhajan Singh, who has 355, followed by New Zealand captain Dan Vettori's 325. Beyond that, forget it.

To get even close a bowler would need huge reserves of stamina, to retain the desire and ability to play many years and almost certainly to be a spinner.

The top three are twirly men, followed by a clutch of fast and fast-medium men. But throw in the relatively small number of tests in these T20 fast food days and the financial appeal of the shortest game for the best players and the demands on the body make it highly unlikely the smiling Tamil will be overhauled.

But is he the best? That's purely subjective.

Sir Donald Bradman maintained the greatest bowler he'd ever seen was legspinner Bill O'Reilly, who played alongside him in the 1930s and ended his career with eight against New Zealand in that unhappy test at the Basin Reserve in 1946.

They were far from natural soulmates, but Bradman had him on the highest pedestal. O'Reilly took 102 Ashes wickets in 19 tests, 144 in 27 altogether.

Historians would point to a cantankerous English medium pacer in the early 20th century, Sydney Barnes.

His numbers were phenomenal, 189 wickets in 27 tests at 16 runs apiece.

Whoever takes your vote, it's safe to say Murali is not a grey area.

He'll either get sustained applause for his achievements or a mental asterisk will sit against his name for those who've always figured his deeds were achieved, whatever the game's rulers might say, by means that were not quite cricket.