Muttiah Muralitharan, the former Sri Lankan off-spinner turned 48 on Friday. On his birthday, The International Cricket Council’s (ICC) official Twitter handle posted a video clip of the moment when Muralitharan scalped his 800th Test wicket. ICC captioned the post saying,” The moment Muralitharan reached 800 Test wickets”. In the video, Muralitharan can be seen celebrating the momentous feat with his teammates as the crowd stands up and applauds the legendary spinner. Muralitharan’s 800th scalp was former Indian spinner Pragyan Ojha. Ojha edged the ball outside which carried to the slip fielder making Muralitharan the only spinner to scalp 800 wickets in Test cricket.
The Sri Lankan off-spinner made his Test debut against Australia back in 1992 at the Premadasa Stadium in Colombo. Soon after, Muralitharan was selected for the ODI series against India in 1993. Interestingly, Muralitharan made his ODI debut at the same Premadasa Stadium where he made his Test debut.
Since then, Muttiah Muralitharan went on to become one of the most prominent faces in the Sri Lanka team. He was also one of the most feared bowlers in world cricket during his career.
During his career, Muttiah Muralitharan played 133 Test matches and claimed a staggering 800 wickets with an economy rate of 2.47. He still holds this record and it looks highly unlikely that any bowler will be able to achieve this feat in Test cricket at the moment.
In ODIs, Muralitharan featured in 350 matches and took 534 wickets with an economy rate of 3.93. He also played 12 T20Is for Sri Lanka and took 13 wickets in the shortest format of the game.
Muralitharan’s last international game was against India in the 2011 World Cup final.
