SCRATCH any sport and you’ll detect the crunch of numbers, statistics, times, distances, how big, how wide, how fast, how tall, how many flops and failures – it’s a nirvana of numerology.

Even if the collation of data signally fails to lift the emotions as the actual event, there’s no denying the importance of numbers to a battery of athletic pursuits.

Actually, over the Atlantic Ocean – I pointedly refuse to call it a pond (oops sorry) – the most popular sports in the American psyche virtually exist for stattoes.

Baseball, gridiron – I steadfastly decline to call it American foo...

(close escape there) – basketball and ice hockey are pedantic purveyors of the quick-flash declaration of figures and facts.

I’ll wager right now someone will be able to reveal just how many gridiron mastodons there are of Finnish extraction, who were born on a Tuesday in the middle of a typhoon with a Hispanic nurse cutting their umbilical cord. Actually, there are... (only joshing, honest).

However, there will always be figures of fate in sport – and they superbly augment the exhilaration, the exasperation, the sheer emotion-wrenching nature of sport.

Of prime importance just this week was the Sri Lankan cricket stronghold of Galle, where Muttiah Muralitharan posted a bedazzling feat.

The spin bowler bagged no less than his 800th Test wicket. Such a mesmerising milestone was achieved with the very last ball of his Test career with the Sri Lankan maestro announcing before the international showdown against India, that it would be his final Test.

Muralitharan’s final victim was tail-ender Pragyan Ojha, who, at least, will boast a footnote in cricketing folklore, even if he never achieves anything else in the game.

The Sri Lankan ace’s greatest spin rival, wizard of Australia, Shane Warne, doffed his cap to the achievement. Breaking off from commentating on the Test match between Australia and Pakistan at Headingley, Warne declared it a feat never to be broken.

Mischievously referring to Muralitharan’s chequered career – he was twice cited for ‘chucking’ in 1995 and 1999, though his action was finally deemed proper by the game’s powers – Warne recognised his adversary’s accomplishment as “amazing”.

And even if anyone still leans to the ‘chucker’ viewpoint, 800 wickets is an astounding feat by any sporting standards.

Murali’s magical reign has been helped by the fact that it is associated with cricket, a sport which chimes to the serene compilation of facts and figures.

But that still does not detract from the inherent excitement of any sport.

Remember Geoff Boycott’s 100th first-class century gleaned on England duty against the nation’s nemesis of Australia and at his home ground of Headingley to boot in 1977?

That remains a priceless moment, as does Gary Sobers’ six successive sixes off one over for Nottinghamshire against Glamorganshire in 1968. The hapless bowler was Malcolm Nash, a forerunner in history to Muralitharan’s Ojha.

Then there’s Graham Gooch’s 333 against India at Lord’s in 1990 and Brian Lara’s 400 not out for the West Indies against England six summers ago.

Other incomparable numbers include 18 Majors won by golf’s ‘Golden Bear’ Jack Nicklaus, which could yet prove out of the reach of a waning Tiger Woods.

How about the seven consecutive Tour de France conquests by Lance Armstrong, who is currently toiling in the saddle in this year’s sinew-snapping race which concludes in Paris tomorrow?

Then there’s that great Briton, Steve Redgrave, who rowed to no fewer than five gold medals in five Olympic Games on the spin to earn a knighthood.

Another knight of the realm, Geoff Hurst, remains the only man to net a hat-trick in a World Cup final. That’s a record never to be beaten by a countryman given the meringue collapse we all witnessed by our fading footballing prowess last month.

Even in these days when what is sported on the back of players’ shirts can allude more to how much they earn a week than what position they play, football still harbours a number fixation.

Only this week burly front-man Andy Carroll was purring at the distinction of being handed the number nine shirt for the Magpies’ return to the top-flight. That’s the same number nine whose previous wearers included Tyneside legends like Jackie Milburn, Malcolm MacDonald and Alan Shearer.

May the numbers game live long and prime throughout sport.