These extraordinary performances led Muttiah Muralitharan to state that Lara was the most dangerous batsman he had ever faced.

Muralitharan had not commenced bowling the doosra at this time.

In the 2012 season Muralitharan moved to Royal Challengers Bangalore where he took 14 wickets in 9 games and had an average economy rate of 6. 38.

Prior to the eventful Boxing Day Test of 1995, Muralitharan had captured 80 wickets in 22 Tests at an unflattering average of 32. 74.

Muralitharan had bowled two overs before lunch from umpire Steve Dunne's or the Members ' End of the ground with umpire Hair at square leg and these passed without incident.

The Sri Lankan camp was outraged after the incident, but the ICC leapt to Hair's defence, outlining a list of steps they had taken in the past to determine, without result, the legitimacy of Muralitharan's action .< ref name =" Muralitharan no-balled by Hair

In February 2009 he was ranked as the world's fifth-best Test bowler behind Muttiah Muralitharan, Dale Steyn, Stuart Clark and Mitchell Johnson, but had dropped to being 25th-best ODI bowler, according to the ICC rankings.

Cairns completed his blazing 50 and became even more cavalier with his wicket, eventually being stumped off Muralitharan as well, but the damage had already been done with the World XI looking at a score well above 300.

Raina had a difficult start to his international career, being dismissed first ball by Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan.

Menon suggests that investigation into Muralitharan ’ s deliveries led to the revelation of imperfections present in the bowling action and deliveries of the previously considered ‘ picture-perfect ’ fast bowler, Glenn McGrath.

Muralitharan held the number one spot in the International Cricket Council ’ s player rankings for Test bowlers for a record period of 1, 711 days spanning 214 Test matches.

Muralitharan took the wicket of Gautam Gambhir on 2009 in Colombo to surpass Wasim Akram's ODI record of 501 wickets.

Periyasamy Sinasamy's first wish to see Muralitharan claiming the world record for the most Test wickets was realised ( passing the record set by Courtney Walsh ), but not his desire to live to see his grandson married.

* May 8 – Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan breaks Courtney Walsh's world record of 519 Test wickets with his 520th wicket against Zimbabwe in Harare

This record was later broken in 2004 by Muttiah Muralitharan.

McGrath holds the world record for the highest number of Test wickets by a fast bowler and is fourth on the all-time list, with the top three wicket takers Muttiah Muralitharan, Shane Warne, and Anil Kumble all being spin bowlers.

This record has since been surpassed by Muttiah Muralitharan.

He holds the world record for most wickets in List A cricket with 881 and is second only to Sri Lankan off-spin bowler, Muttiah Muralitharan in terms of ODI wickets with 502.

On 7 October 2007 Maharoof took his 100th wicket in his 75th ODI ; at the time he was the fastest Sri Lankan to reach the landmark, beating Muttiah Muralitharan by one match, however this record was later taken by fast bowler Lasith Malinga in 2010 who reached 100 wickets in 68 matches.

* 8 May-Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan breaks Courtney Walsh's world record of 519 Test wickets with his 520th wicket against Zimbabwe in Harare.

Harris currently shares the world record for the most caught and bowled dismissals in ODIs with 29, the record is shared with Muttiah Muralitharan.

A long time admirer and supporter of Sri Lankan record breaking off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan it was Yardley who encouraged Murali to add the doosra to his arsenal.

Former Australian Test player, Bruce Yardley, who himself was an off spinner in his day, was assigned with the task of ensuring Muralitharan bowled all his deliveries with the same vigour as he would do so in match conditions when tested in 2004.

In 2007, when Cricket Australia decided to unveil the new Warne-Muralidaran Trophy, to be contested between Australia and Sri Lanka, Muralitharan was requested to clarify how his name should be spelt.

One notable incident was when Sri Lanka temporarily stopped play against England when Muttiah Muralitharan was called for throwing by umpire Darrell Hair.

After he made his hundred, his third six, saw the introduction to the Switch hit when he turned out and played a switch hitted sweep of Muttiah Muralitharan.

Michael Selvey describes the accusations placed on the bowler in relation to his widely disputed bowling action and delivery, stating the Australian president ’ s reference to the Sri Lankan as a ‘ chucker .’ The controversy linked to Muralitharan ’ s delivery emerged in 1995, when the umpire of the test match between Sri Lanka and Australia deemed Muralitharan ’ s delivery as illegal on the suspicion that he was throwing the ball.

Averaging over six wickets per Test, Muralitharan is one of the most successful bowlers in the game.

Muralitharan captured 11 wickets in 15 games, at an economy rate of 6. 96 an over.

Since his debut in 1992, Muralitharan has taken 800 Test wickets and over 500 One Day International wickets, becoming the first player to take 1, 000 wickets combined in the two main forms of international cricket.

In Sri Lanka's humiliating drubbing at the hands of India in 1993 – 94, where all three Tests were innings defeats, Muralitharan was the sole success, with 12 wickets in the rubber.

Notable contemporary off spinners include, Muttiah Muralitharan of Sri Lanka, who has the most wickets in both ODIs and Test matches, Saqlain Mushtaq and Saeed Ajmal of Pakistan and Graeme Swann of England.

Yuvraj Singh became his 400th ODI victim and consequently Vaas joined the illustrious company of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and his team mate Muttiah Muralitharan as only the fourth bowler in international cricket to have taken 400 ODI wickets.

Vaas took the first eight wickets of Zimbabwe's then record-lowest ODI innings of 38, with Muralitharan taking the final two wickets in his first over.

A specialist bowler, he has the second-highest number of Test wickets by an off spinner, behind Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan.

They lost the match match by six wickets, partly due to being unable to handle the spin of Muralitharan who took eight wickets.

* Akram was the first bowler in international cricket to take more than 400 wickets in both forms of the game and only Muttiah Muralitharan has since achieved this.

Lee finished the series with 15 wickets, the third highest tally behind Nathan Bracken and Muttiah Muralitharan.

When his grandfather died at the age of 104 in July 2004, Muralitharan returned home from a tour of India to attend his funeral.

When Muttiah Muralitharan withdrew from the 2004 tour to Australia, Chandana came into the Test side as the main spin bowler.

He takes a very dim view of chucking, which he calls " a bigger threat than bribing and betting " and claimed in 2004 that many bowlers on the subcontinent chuck, calling Muralitharan a " Sri Lankan bandit closing in on a dream artist called Shane Warne ".

When the former visited Sri Lanka in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami to aid Muralitharan in his " great work " there, he developed an amiable rapport with his long-time foe: " We even wagged ," he confirmed later.

Batticaloa is the primary focus of attention of Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, better known as Karuna Amman, a former LTTE commander who broke away from the main organization in 2004.