Legendary Sri Lankan off-spinner Muttiah Muralidaran turned 51 on April 17, 2023, and to make the occasion even more special for the spin wizard, the makers of his biopic unveiled the first-look poster of the upcoming film. Muralidaran’s biopic ‘800’ is written and directed by MS Sripathy with Slumdog Millionaire fame Madhurr Mittal starring in the lead role. The movie produced by Movie Train Motion Pictures and Vivek Rangachar is expected to be released later this year in Tamil, Hindi, and Telugu.
The Kandy-born cricketer is the leading wicket-taker in the history of international cricket with 1347 scalps to his name at an average of 22.86. The movie is aptly titled ‘800’ after the record number of wickets the off-spinner took in Test cricket. Notably, Murali has his roots in Tamil Nadu as his grandparents were Indians who were taken to Sri Lanka by Britishers to work in tea plantations there.
Muralidaran was rated the greatest Test Match bowler in 2002 by Wisden’s Cricketers Almanack. In 2017, he became the first and only Sri Lankan cricketer to be inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
The off-spinner’s career was marred with controversies with people calling out his unusual action ‘illegal’ in the game. However, Murali didn’t pay heed to the naysayers and fought his way through to the top. He was ranked number one in ICC’s player rankings for Test bowlers for 1,711 days across 214 Test matches.
Murali is the leading wicket-taker in both Tests and ODIs
He surpassed West Indian speedster Courtney Walsh in 2004, then Australia’s Shane Warne in 2007, to become the leading wicket-taker in Test cricket. He further became the highest wicket-taker in ODIs in 2009, at home in Colombo, and went past Wasim Akram’s tally of 502 wickets to set a new ODI record. He finished his ODI career with 534 wickets in 350 matches at an average of 23.08.
Muralidaran is the second-highest wicket-taker in the history of ODI World Cups with 68 scalps to his name. He was a part of the Sri Lankan team which won the ODI World Cup in 1996. In 12 T20Is, he further has 13 wickets to his name.
In the ongoing Indian Premier League, the legendary spinner is the spin-bowling coach of Sunrisers Hyderabad.