Muttiah Muralitharan

Murali in 2013

Muttiah Muralitharan (born 17 April 1972), widely known as Murali, is a former international cricketer who represented Sri Lanka from 1992 to 2011, and was a key player in their team which won the 1996 Cricket World Cup. He played for several domestic teams around the world but mainly for Tamil Union in Sri Lanka. Unquestionably one of the sport's all-time greats, he was nominally a specialist right-arm off break bowler, but one who was extremely innovative. Murali was noted for his competitive approach as he was nearly always an attacking bowler trying to take wickets instead of restricting the batsman's scoring opportunities. He has taken more wickets in international cricket than any other bowler and holds the world career records for the most wickets taken in Test cricket (800) and Limited Overs Internationals (534).

Murali is said to be the first bowler with the ability to generate off spin by using his wrist instead of his fingers. During his early career, many batsmen mistook him for a leg spinner. A wrist spinner is traditionally a leg break bowler whose spin makes the ball break when pitched from leg side to off side (from right to left if the batsman is right-handed); while off spin is normally created using the fingers and the break is from off to leg (from left to right if a right-handed batsman). Murali made considerable use of the "doosra", a delivery by an off spinner which produces a leg break, the ball spinning in the opposite direction to a conventional off break and thereby confusing the batsman. Another delivery he used was the top spinner which lands on the seam and goes straight on instead of breaking to either leg or off; Murali always bowled this ball at a much quicker pace than his off breaks and doosras.

During the 1990s, Murali's bowling action was sometimes questioned because his right elbow is congenitally bent and, when he was bowling, caused a hyperextension of the arm that led some observers to think his action was a throw (in simple terms, a bowler is required to keep his or her arm as straight as possible during delivery). The International Cricket Council (ICC) conducted a study of bowling actions to determine why some players might have an unusual action that is fair despite outward appearance. The result of the study, based on biomechanical analysis, was in Murali's favour. The ICC recognised that a bowling action is fair if the player has a hyperextension of 15 degrees, and Murali was within that limit.

Since he retired as a player, Murali has been a bowling coach and has worked with Australia, Bengal, and Sunriders Hyderabad. He was with Sunriders when they won the 2016 edition of the Indian Premier League.