Muttiah Muralitharan has set his eyes on taking 1000 Test wickets after becoming only the second bowler in history to reach 700. He is now only nine wickets away from surpassing retired Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne’s world record of 708 to become the most successful bowler ever in the game.
The champion off-spinner achieved the landmark with the last ball of the third and final Test against Bangladesh in Kandy when he had Bangladesh’s last man Syed Rasel caught in the deep by Farveez Maharoof to secure a Sri Lanka’s victory by an innings and 193 runs.
Muralitharan told reporters
It is a big achievement taking 700 wickets but I think I can achieve a little bit more, I anyway knew I was going to get to 700. The challenge is whether I can take 1,000 Test wickets before I retire. I am now thinking about playing until the next World Cup.
The dominance of Murali can be seen in a statistics of all the Tests(involving Murali) played by Sri Lanka. Murali has taken 695 wickets with an average of 21.25 whereas rest of bowlers have taken only 994 wickets with an average of 35.35.
Murali’s journey to 700 wickets
| Wicket no. | Tests | Average | Strike rate | 5WI/ 10WM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | 27 | 31.49 | 71.47 | 6/ 0 |
| 200 | 42 | 26.90 | 64.25 | 16/ 2 |
| 300 | 58 | 25.17 | 61.66 | 24/ 5 |
| 400 | 72 | 23.53 | 59.79 | 33/ 10 |
| 500 | 87 | 22.89 | 59.06 | 42/ 13 |
| 600 | 101 | 22.35 | 56.25 | 50/ 14 |
| 700 | 113 | 21.33 | 53.41 | 60/ 20 |
