Muthaiah Muralidaran has yet another world record to his credit. He has bowled most maiden overs in the annals of test cricket. Prior to the start of the Galle test against New Zealand he had bowled 1754 maiden overs which was next to Shane Warne’s 1761 maiden overs.

He needed to bowl eight maiden overs to surpass Shane Warne’s 1761 maiden overs and to script the world record for most maiden overs.

During the course of New Zealand’ first innings, he bowled 79th over of Sri Lanka’s innings to Jacab Oram. This was a maiden over. It was the eighth maiden over bowled by Muralidaran in this innings and was the 27th over bowled by him.

This eighth maiden over bowled by him gave him record for most maiden overs bowled by a bowler in the annals of test cricket – 1762 – as he went past Shane Warne’s 1761 maiden overs. At the end of the first innings, he had figures of 42.0-10-73-4 which gave him 1764 maiden overs and at the end of the match his maiden overs stood at 1768 as he had returned with figures of 27.0-4-88-3 in the second innings

Another world record came in the way of Muralitharan in the Galle test. He had an aggregate of 96 test wickets at Galle. IE O’Brien who was caught at the wicket by HAPW Jayawardene became his 100^th victim at Galle. At the end of the test, his total tally of wickets at Galle stood at 103. Muralidaran had already captured 160 wickets at Colombo-SSC and 117 wickets at Kandy.

Thus he became the only bowler in the annals of test cricket to capture 100 plus wickets at three specific venues.

{Muralidaran’s Photo : Courtesy – Cricinfo.com}