Sri Lankan spin legend Muralitharan and his 800 Test wickets

Sri Lankan spin legend Muralitharan and his 800 Test wickets: The greatest off-spinner of all time, Muttiah Muralitharan is no doubt a legend. This day holds a precious memory on his as well as the minds of cricket fans, a moment of pride not just for his country but the entire cricket fraternity when in the last test match of his career Muralitharan became the first bowler ever to take 800 wickets in test cricket. He announced his retirement before the test match started at the Galle Cricket Stadium in Sri Lanka against India, those words did break a million hearts.

It was the last time when Muralitharan put on his test jersey for Sri Lanka. The home team started strong with 520 on the board but India could hardly play for 70 overs and lost all its wicket at the score of 276 in the first innings, that was a result of Murali’s magical spell where he took 5 wickets off his 17 overs giving 63 runs. This five wickets were not the easy ones though, it included 3 of the biggest names in it, the Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar, the Captain Cool Mahendra Singh Dhoni and the Smasher Yuvraj Singh.

The second innings as well didn’t last long for India, Muttiah Muralitharan had a three wicket haul in it. India were struggling to chase the total with time and wickets running out of their hands at the score of 314/9 with Laxman and Ojha at the crease and a few overs for the day to end. You can call it magic but it’s true, Murali was on 799th wicket till the last ball of the last over of his last test match, that’s when the Murali spell worked again for the last time to complete his 800th wicket, the first man ever to do so in the form of Pragyan Ojha, everything else is history. The long celebrations that was not just for the win but for the Legend and his contribution to the Cricket World.

Something so great began long time back in 1992 here are the milestones of his career, a glimpse from where he started till the last ball of his test career in 2010, he reigned the spinning world and was every batsman’s fear:

1. First Wicket: Craig McDermott, Australia
2. 100th Wicket: Stephen Fleming , New Zealand

3. 200th Wicket: Dominic Cork, England

4. 300th Wicket: Shaun Pollock, South Africa

5. 400th Wicket: Henry Olonga, Zimbabwe

6. 500th Wicket: Michael Kasprowicz, Australia

7. 600th Wicket: Khaled Mashud, Bangladesh

8. 700th Wicket: Syed Rasel, Bangladesh

9. 800th Wicket: Pragyan Ojha, India