 Sri Lanka's best ever bowler, and the world's highest wicket-taker in either form
of the game, Muttiah Muralitharan, has decided to retire from Test match
cricket. Muralitharan will play his last Test match against India at Galle, which
begins from 18th of July.
Muralitharan has said that he will not feature in the tri-series after that,
but will not be completely retired from ODIs. He will probably pick and choose
the ODIs that he can play and then, based on the situation leading up to the
World Cup, will decided whether or not to feature in the tournament in the Indian
sub-continent.
According to a website, Muralitharan met up with chief selector Aravinda de Silva and discussed about how will he take up the rest of his career.
He is said to have announced his intention of not playing any more Tests after
the first game. de Silva and captain Kumar Sangakkara are said to have asked
him to consider playing through the series, but he politely refused doing so.
According to someone close to Murali, he has been contemplating retirement
for some time now. It was also added that while Muralitharan wants to feature
in the World Cup, he does not want to block someone's path to the top. Suraj
Randiv, Rangana Herath and Ajantha Mendis are the three spinners who will replace
Muralitharan in the side.
Kushil Gunasekara, Murali's manager, added that he wanted to play against West
Indies at the end of the year, but this series against India which was
not planned earlier made him advance his decision.
Murali also wanted to play county cricket for Surrey, but the Sri Lankan board
has disallowed any of its cricket from featuring in tournaments outside the
country before the World Cup. This has been done in order to allow the players
to restrict their fitness woes.
Muralitharan had already announced that he would retire after the home series
against West Indies, but then added that he may not last even till then. He
had said that the age was catching up as he had started to get tired after bowling
15 overs in a day unlike in the times of the past, where he would bowl 30 overs
easily and that is how he would get his wickets.
Murali 792 wickets in 132 Tests and 515 wickets in 337 ODIs. He has one Test
match to get the 8 wickets required to get to 800 wickets.
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