Former Sri Lanka spinner Muttiah Muralitharan played his career with the image of a fiery cricketer who never shied away from challenges. This willingness to take on challenges made Murali one of the greatest cricketing figures in the history of the game. When Murali announced his intention to retire from Test cricket before the start of the first Test against India in 2010, the star spinner needed only 8 wickets to achieve the feat of becoming the first bowler to take 800 wickets.
While players are usually expected to delay their retirement to achieve such a feat, Murali gave himself just one match to make history before bidding goodbye to the sport.
The Sri Lankan spinner had made up his mind to take 8 wickets in the match, however, he had a star studded batting lineup that included Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman.
Batting first, the Sri Lankan team made a huge score of 520/8 in the first innings. Now all eyes were on spin master Murali.
By the end of the third day, Murali had reached close to 800 wickets after taking his first wicket in the match in the form of Tendulkar, who was given lbw for 8. The next day, it was a batting collapse for the Indian side, and it was bundled out for 276. Murali ended the innings with his 67th 5th wicket and was just 3 wickets away from 800 Test wickets.
The Sri Lankan team had asked India to follow-on. The Indian team ended the day with a score of 181 for the loss of 5 wickets, one of which was taken by Murali.
With 798 wickets in Test wickets, Murali needed just 2 wickets on the last day of a Test match (July 22, 2010), becoming the first bowler to take 800 Test wickets. But since the achievement was huge, its story also had more twists and turns than usual.
When Laxman was run out for the 9th wicket, Murali still needed one more wicket to reach 800 and many feared he would get out on the spot. But he soon grabbed 800 Test wickets by catching Pragyan Ojha at slips and bundled out the Indian team to seal the match for Sri Lanka.
get all IPL news and cricket score Here
.