Muttiah Muralitharan

Former champion Off-spinner and Sri Lanka’s highest wicket-taker Muttiah Muralitharan has been selected as the ‘Most Valuable Player’ (MVP) of the 21st Century by the Wisden Cricket Monthly.

The magazine in collaboration with the CricViz, the world’s leading cricket analytics company has released the top 30 Test players of the 21st Century and the Sri Lankan off-spinner tops the list.

Muttiah Muralitharan

“We have collected the data from the year 2000, so the list is for the period 2000-2020,” Sam Stow, the Marketing Director, Wisden Cricket Monthly, said. “Out of Murali’s total 800 Test wickets, his 573 wickets in 85 matches were taken from January 1, 2000 to 2010. Only person ahead during this period is James Anderson with 584 but he has played 151 games (2000-2020),” he added.

Jo Harman, Wisden Cricket Monthly magazine editor, speaking exclusively stated. “Murali and Glenn McGrath stand out as the two most impactful bowlers in this analysis by a distance. In this investigation we are analysing the impact of players, not judging who is best, and as a spinner who bowled marathon spells, the Sri Lankan had greater opportunity to dominate Test matches,”.