'He would've got more wickets': Legendary spinner makes big claim about Shane Warne, 'I was always going to play longer'

Shane Warne ended his Test career with a whopping 708 wickets and over 1000 wickets overall in international cricket.

Shane Warne's supremacy as one of the greatest bowlers of all time is testified by the fact that he is one just two bowlers in the history of Test cricket to take over 700 wickets. The only bowler to take more wickets than the Australia great, whose death stunned the world on Friday, was his own contemporary Muttiah Muralitharan, who ended his career with 800 wickets.

Warne ended his career with 708 Test wickets.  (REUTERS)

While Warne ended his Test career with 708 wickets in 273 innings, Sri Lanka's Muralitharan reached the mark in 230 innings. The debate about who was the better bowler between the two has been raging since their playing days but Muralitharan had said that had he not played a few more years than Warne, the latter would have finished with more wickets.

"I was two or three years younger than him, so I was always going to play a little bit longer. and I always had that advantage. If he’d have played the same as me for both our careers, he would have got more wickets than me. I enjoyed that battle; our performance goes up because we’re thinking that ‘we want to beat his record," said Muralitharan.

Muralitharan, 49, had made his international debut in August 1992 and retired in July 2010. Meanwhile, Warne, who was aged 52, made his debut in January 1992 and retired in January 2007.

"It's shocking. I don't know what to say. He's a good friend and also a legendary cricketer. What he has done for spin bowling is more than anyone. He will be remembered as one of the greats in history. It's not the age to die. He was fit whenever I saw him. It's sad for the whole cricket fraternity. It's a big, big loss for the cricketing fraternity," Muralitharan told India Today.