On This Day: A decade ago Muttiah Muralitharan picked up his 800th Test wicket to give himself the ‘perfect ending’

It looked like it would be another of those imperfect endings but Murali managed to get the outside edge of Pragyan Ojha’s bat and it was his old mate Mahela Jayawardene who completed the catch to bring about one of cricket’s biggest individual records.

‘Cricket is a great leveller,’ is an old adage associated with the sport. It is often used to express the ups and downs that the sports has, the vagaries which make it appealing, despite being just a battle between a ball made of cork and leather and a bat, carved out of the finest of willows.

Muttiah Muralitharan of Sri Lanka. (Getty Images)

There are many cricketers who aim to reach certain milestones but they fail to do so in their careers. And then there are cricketers who chase a target down before calling it quits. Tendulkar’s century of centuries is a perfect example of a cricketer achieving a certain landmark, which might not have been a goal to begin with, but eventually became a target to be achieved.

Kapil Dev breaking Richard Hadlee’s record or Brian Lara reaching 400 runs in a Test innings are all examples of individual targets being chased down by dour pursuit. And then there are cricketers who decide their time of departure in advance and leave it on chance to see whether they can give themselves the perfect ending or not.

Don Bradman’s dismissal for a duck that meant a career batting average of 100 eluded him is an example of the not so perfect ending. Sunil Gavaskar’s sublime 96 on a minefield of a batting track in his last Test innings could not save India from a narrow defeat at the hands of arch rivals Pakistan. It is another such example.

But one man, who managed to script the most perfect ending that cricket has seen is Sri Lankan spin legend Muttiah Muralitharan. After battling the most of his initial years to prove that he doesn’t transgress the rules of the sport with his bowling action, Murali went on to create a legacy which is proving to be hard to match.

He picked up wickets as if plucking flowers, in a bunch. The off spinner was a mile ahead of Shane Warne by the time he decided to call it quits in July 2010. He was to play his last Test at Galle against India, which was the first match of the series.

Many were surprised as they expected Murali to play the entire series to give himself a good chance of picking up 8 wickets and become the first, and till date only, bowler to pick 800 Test wickets. But the wizard was challenging himself, one last time.

Sri Lanka batted first and they batted big. Then there was rain that washed away the entire second day. But Murali was not to be denied. He produced a magical spell to account for five Indian wickets in the first innings, the last 5-for of his magnificent career. It included the wickets of Tendulkar, Yuvraj and Dhoni.

India were asked to follow on and Lasith Malinga broke the back of India’s batting by picking up 5 wickets. VVS Laxman was looking to delay the inevitable as he strung together partnership with the lower order which frustrated the Lankans. When he was run out with India 9 wickets down, Muralitharan was stranded at 799, having picked up just 2 wickets in the innings.

It looked like it would be another of those imperfect endings but Murali managed to get the outside edge of Pragyan Ojha’s bat and it was his old mate Mahela Jayawardene who completed the catch to bring about one of cricket’s biggest individual records.

Sri Lanka went on to win the match by 10 wickets as Muralitharan brought the curtains down on a memorable international career. It happened on this day, exactly a decade ago.