Muttiah Muralitharan to retire after 2011 World Cup
Sri Lankan spin-bowling wizard http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Muttiah-Muralitharan-c78157 said on Friday that he will retire from all forms of cricket after February’s ICC World Cup.
“This World Cup will be my last outing,” said the record-breaking spinner after a training session in Colombo. “I am retiring totally from international cricket thereafter.”
The esteemed event, to be jointly hosted by three Test playing nations of subcontinent- India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh- gets underway on 19 February, 2011.
The 38-year-old holds the record for being the leading wicket taker in both Test and one-day cricket.
Having played 133 Tests, Murali picked up 800 wickets at an average of 22.72 including 67 five-wicket hauls and 22 ten wickets in a match. He played his swansong Test match against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 in Galle in July 2010 in which he crossed 800-wicket
mark by dismissing Pragyan Ojha.
His one-day record is equally impressive where he has claimed 517 scalps from 339 appearances including 10 five-wicket hauls and best bowling figures of 7 for 30.
Muralitharan said that his focus for the time being is the quadrennial tournament which would be his fourth World Cup since debuting in 1996 World Cup which Sri Lanka won after defeating http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 in Lahore. The legendary spinner was confident
his last World Cup outing will be evenly memorable as was the opening.
“This is my fourth World Cup. We won in 1996 and came close in 2007 by reaching the final. This would be a memorable one for me and for Sri Lankan fans,” he said.
The Sri Lankan spin prodigy said he had no plans of coaching any time soon after retirement and will instead play in domestic tournaments of various countries.
“There are plenty of coaches and lots of talented people out there. I will take things as they come. For the moment, no coaching stints,” said Murali. “I have signed up to play for two years in the IPL. I am also looking at similar work
in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754 and perhaps England,” added the off-spinner.
The mega event starts in Dhaka on 19 February, 2011 and will run till 2 April. http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758 is scheduled to host 12 World Cup fixtures and three of them will be played at the newly constructed stadium in Muralitharan's home district, Kandy.
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