Murali - the cynosure of all eyes in First Test

The greatest spinner ever produced by Sri Lanka, off spinner Muthiah Muralitharan will be the cynosure of all eyes when Sri Lanka takes on England in the First Cricket Test to be played at the Asgiriya Stadium in Kandy on Saturday December 1st and the match is scheduled to conclude on, December 5 if it goes the full distance.

At a Committee Meeting of the Kandy District Cricket Association held at the Regional Office at the Asgiriya Stadium it was disclosed by the Honorary Secretary of the Association Roland Perera that the Association will handle the match arrangements along with Sri Lanka Cricket.

The Committee headed by the President Thilina Tennakoon with the assistance of Secretary Roland Perera, Senior Vice President Janaka Pathirana and Treasurer Tuan Dole and other members have been working hard to make this Test match a success.

There has been a dramatic change of weather conditions up in the hills from the wet conditions it has changed to bright and sunny conditions during the past three days.

It has been bright weather upto the time of writing on Tuesday (November 27) and this has to a very large extent helped the National Curator Anuruddha Polonowita assisted by the Acting curator of the Asgiriya Stadium Roger Abeyratne to prepare the Test match wicket which in all probability is going to be a true wicket.

The stadium has been closed for sports activities of Trinity College for over three weeks now in preparation for the Test match. The outfield too looks green helped by the recent showers.

All uneven surface has been levelled, and the security fence will be constructed before the match commences. The Sri Lanka Cricket has dumped quite a tidy sum to upgrade the existing facilities including the media box. The terraces will be cleaned and equipped with chairs for the special enclosures. There will be a live telecast of the match.

The cynosure of all eyes will be the local boy affectionately known as the smiling assassin Muthiah Muralitharan who is all set to become the highest wicket taker in the history of Test Cricket which spans over 130 years.

Muralitharan has now 704 wickets to his tally and needs just five wickets to eclipse the world record of 708 wickets held by Australian spinner Shane Warne. There is a chance of Muralitharan of having a go at this world record before his home town crowd.

It must be recalled that Muthiah Muralitharan learned his cricket at St. Anthony's College, Katugastota under the watchful eyes of Sunil Fernando, who could be termed as the discoverer of this world's greatest spinner. Playing softball cricket in the junior school compound, Sunil Fernando saw the potential in little Muthiah Muralitharan and invited him to attend practices to play junior cricket for the school.

Like all young cricketers he wanted to bowl fast and be a hard hitting batsman. But Sunil Fernando saw the potential in Muralitharan to bowl spinners and made him bowl spinners and was an instant success.

He was playing in a team which had two other top class and senior spinners Ruwan Kalpage and Piyal Wijetunge and all three went on to play for Sri Lanka. In fact in a test match against South Africa Muthiah Muralitharan, Ruwan Kalpage and Piyal Wijetunga played together which may be a record and coming from the same school and having played for the school team together.

Muralitharan in two seasons captured over 100 wickets twice including a haul of 129 wickets. The Kandy District Cricket Association will honour during this Test match by putting up life size Pictures of him both inside and outside the grounds and a grand fireworks display at the end of the day's play has been also planned if Muralitharan breaks the world record.

There will be also a procession on the opening day's play with the participation of five elephants and Kandyan dancers - a sort of 'mini perahera' in the traditional Kandyan style.

Muthiah Muralitharan has already captured over 100 test wickets at the Asgiriya which is a familiar terrain for him having played here from his younger days. Thus the chances are there that this world record of most number of test wickets will be broken at the Asgiriya Stadium - which had come a long time since that days of Trinity's then Principal Fraser levelled a hillock to construct this playground in 1928.

Then in the 1980s the Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka headed by the late Gamini Dissanayake lowered the existing playing foot by six foot and merged the junior grounds lying towards the Mahaiyawe end to make it a Test venue in keeping with the ICC requirements. Construction of a new pavilion, media box and terraces too followed to make it the first Test venue outside Colombo.

The first centurion at national level on the new Asgiriya Stadium was none other than the Chief Match Referee of the ICC and former Sri Lanka cricket captain Ranjan Madugalla with Bernard Perera too chipping in with a half century. Both remained unbeaten.

It is left to be seen whether Asgiriya will be the venue of cricketing history and there is better opportunity for Muthiah Muralitharan to do so before his home crowd who idolise him.