By the time you read this, Muttiah Muralitharan may well have broken the record for Test-match wickets, having joined Shane Warne on the almost ludicrous mark of 708 yesterday. Time, then, to brace yourself for a wave of resentment, most of it from Australia.

It makes a fascinating parallel with The Times’s series on the 75th anniversary of the Bodyline tour. Back then there was (and still is, in a fossilised kind of way) outrage that an Australian sporting hero should be revealed as nothing more than a man. The tactic of bodyline bowling exposed Don Bradman’s shortcomings and this was not acceptable. Therefore, the tactic must be wrong.

The record Murali has equalled is held by a player who, like Bradman, is one of the greatest cricketers that ever drew breath. But Murali is set to pass his record; therefore the record-equaller must be wrong.

Murali is Wisden’s 2007 Leading Cricketer in the World and I wrote a piece in the almanack to mark the fact. I said that Murali’s action had been passed and accepted and authorised, which means that you cannot quarrel with Murali, only with the laws of cricket. I also said that those who pick this quarrel must be prepared to argue about the angle between the longitudinal axis of the upper arm and forearm in the sagittal plane.

Inevitably, a couple of Australian columnists of the unreconstructed kind responded. Their argument was, roughly, I don’t care about all that, I just know that he chucks every ball and that makes “Warnie” the best. So much for logic.

The only rational view is that both are great cricketers and remarkable sportsmen. After that we can argue for as long as you like as to which is better. The argument that Murali is less good because he is compromised (mainly by Australian insularity) is simply not admissible.

It has been a joy watching him: a thrilling but chivalrous opponent, a symbol of unity in a sometimes troubled country, a professional who plays sport with the relish of more innocent times. Some people see international sport as a way in which local heroes seek to touch the infinite, while others see international sport as a measure of the length in feet of the national d**k.

Me, I’ve seen England lose to Murali and I’ve seen England lose to Warnie, and I’ve been blessed. (I’ve seen England win against both as well, so make that doubly blessed.)

To Jonny the glory; to Jason the tag of genius

Few athletes have given me greater pleasure than Jason Robinson. Loyal to my father’s roots, I often watched him when he played rugby league for Wigan and marvelled at the way that some men can run and be caught, while others run and no one can hold them. Therein lies the mystery of rugby.

It’s not just speed, not just little jinks and stutters, it’s not even the ability to see lines of running. Rather, it’s about a personal understanding of space. Robinson, who retired on Saturday after taking part in the Barbarians’ win over South Africa, had this gift to a greater extent than any rugby player I have seen, with the sole exception of David Campese.

Robinson is a rare example of a completely successful code-changer. He went from league to union and was almost at once a success. This is a tribute to his sporting intelligence as much as to his running abilities, but it also demonstrates his courage in entering a different world and making it his own.

English rugby union players still tend to come from middle-class backgrounds, to have gone to “good” or fee-paying schools. Even without sport they would still have had plenty of advantages. Robinson had nothing to declare but his genius.

But he never relied on genius. He relied on work, fitness, preparation – well, naturally you turn up to practice an hour early, otherwise you can’t prepare properly, can you? Robinson’s career in rugby union was in many ways a triumph of ethics.

And he won the World Cup in 2003. Of course, Jonny got the glory, but it was Robinson who made the decisive moves in two tight games: a devastating run that broke Wales in the quarter-finals and an inspired finish against Australia in the final, pictured. One of the best I’ve seen, in any sport.

Money talks louder than managers - ask BenÍtez

Here’s some good advice: don’t go up to a man who is 6ft 6in and weighs 18st and tell him to f*** off. No good will come of it. In fact, the only person capable of doing such a thing is someone who is drunk on his own self-importance.

By the same token, if you are a mere millionaire, it is not a good idea to go up to a billionaire and tell him to f*** off. They don’t like it – partly because you are only a millionaire and partly because the character traits that got them to billionaire status make them unsympathetic to people who tell them to f*** off.

So Rafael BenÍtez becomes the latest football manager to tell a billionaire to f*** off after falling out with Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr, the Liverpool owners. He discovered that billionaires don’t f*** off much as a general rule, least of all when told to do so by the likes of you. He joins Sir Alex Ferguson, who tried the same trick with John Magnier at Manchester United, and José Mourinho, who thought that Roman Abramovich, the Chelsea owner, was frightened of him.

Who’s next? For there will be others as the pattern of football ownership changes and we increasingly have owners instead of chairmen, monarchy instead of oligarchy. At the same time, managers lead more precious lives than ever, surrounded by toadies and sycophants, subordinates, media people, agents and players whose careers depend on managerial whims.

In such circumstances a man is going to feel ever so slightly invulnerable. So he bullies the little chaps, then he bullies the big chaps, then he bullies a really big chap and he jolly well catches it. And serve him jolly well right, too.

A wise owner lets a manager manage, but a manager who can’t let an owner own is an idiot. Football is changing before our eyes and the way managers manage must change with it. Those who fail to end up sacked, like Mourinho, or merely humiliated, like Ferguson. BenÍtez is still in Ferguson’s camp. Just.

England’s legion of foreign excuses

When Sven-Göran Eriksson stepped down as England head coach, the consensus was that England failed to get beyond the quarter-finals in three tournaments because Eriksson was a foreigner. So when Steve McClaren, an indisputably English man, failed to get England through the qualifying stages of Euro 2008, what was the reason this time? Foreigners, of course. Too many of them playing for English clubs. Bloody foreigners! England would win the World Cup every four years if the world wasn’t so full of foreigners.

All the talk before the Sri Lanka-England Test series was about Stephen Harmison, as usual. And, as usual, the bowler who did the business when it began was Matthew Hoggard, with four wickets in his opening spell - perpetually unheralded, perpetually modest, perpetually excellent. Times columnists are like that.