Muttiah Muralitharan

At the start of his swansong test, Muttiah Muralitharan test, he was eight wickets short of reaching the remarkable figure of 800 wickets. But his patience bore fruit and he became the first test cricketer to take 800 wickets. His 800th victim was Pragyan Ojha who was caught in the slip by Mahela Jaywardene.

The Indian test cricket team which is ranked at No.1 position didn’t leave up to the expectations and was bowled out for 338 runs in their second innings. India was able to save the disgrace of an innings defeat with some worthy contributions from the tailenders such as Abhimanyu Mithun, Ishant Sharma and Pragyan Ojha. Previously India was all-out for 276 runs in their first innings leading to follow on. India which continued the play from 181/5 lost two wicketsof Captain MS Dhoni and Harbhajan Singh in quick succession. While the captain could contribute only four runs, Harbhajan was able to score only 8 runs. VVS Laxman was the only batsmen to cross the half century mark in the second innings. He scored 69 runs. Neither the Indian bowling nor the Indian batti9ng was up to the mark.

Muralitharan gave himself farewell in style by taking five wickets in the first innings and scalping three in second to reaching the remarkable feat of taking 800 wickets. But Murali faced competition from his own teammate Lasith Malinga as Malinga was in full fury and he removed M S Dhoni with his outswinger and Mithun in the opening session. Murali was only able to add one wicket in his kitty till lunch break taking his tally to 799. Malinga was removed after only three overs to help Murali achieve the feat. However at that time, Murali was only able to trap Harbhajan Singh to reach the 799 mark. Malinga was brought back to attack and he scalped Mithun and there was a chance that if Malinga took two wickets of Ishant and Ojha, Murali could have ended on 799. However fate was on Murali’s side. Ishant remained not out at the score of 31 runs.

Srilankan team jumped into celebration when Tilakratne Dilshan(68 not out) hit a six off Harbhajan Singh to reach the score of 96 runs in just 14.1 overs to lead his team to victory. Tharanga Paranavitana was 23 not out.

Srilanka now leads the series 1-0.

By: Shruti Roy

Tags: Cricket, India, Muttiah Muralitharan, Sports, Sports India, Sri Lanka