Muralitharan to bid adios to test cricket
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Fathima Zanaida
The world’s leading wicket taker and Sri Lankan spinning legend, Muttiah Muralitharan has finally decided to bid adios to the game he loved calling cricket over the years.
There have been speculations for the last two to three years about the possible retirement of the orthodox off-spinner, but he had been coming up with the match-winning performances for his country that kept these retirement calls at bay for the most part. However, the age, now 38, has started to tell on his performance after which, the world’s leading bowler is all set to retire from the Test cricket after the first test against India later this month.
Muralitharan’s manager Kushil Gunasekara told international media on late Tuesday, “Murali took a decision to retire from test cricket during the West Indies series in November but with an unscheduled Indian series coming up he has fast-tracked his retirement from Test cricket”.
“The selectors wanted Murali to be available for the 2011 World Cup which Sri Lanka is partly hosting with India and Bangladesh,” he added.
With the announcement, the ageing spinner is unlikely to be part of the Sri Lankan outfit for the upcoming One Day International Tri-Series against New Zealand and India next month but would be available for national selection ahead of a hectic world cup build-up.
All the teams would be getting fair bit of cricket ahead of the ICC World Cup 2011 as Sri Lanka will tour Australia in November for three ODIs and two Twenty20 Internationals and then the team will fly to the Caribbean where they will play five ODIs against the West Indies in December.
A statement on the Sri Lanka Cricket website (www.srilankacricket.lk) stated, ” Muralitharan has had discussions with the National Selectors, Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) officials and has had the blessings of His Excellency the President Mahinda Rajapakse and the Minister of Sports, Honorary C B Ratnayake”.
The off-spinner who had to bear number of controversies with respect to his bowling action during the course of his international career during which he took staggering 792 wickets in just 132 test matches and sent 515 batsmen back to pavilion in the ODIs since his debut in 1992 against Australia.
posted @ 10:52 AM,
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