Australian cricket have roped in legendary Sri Lankan off spinner Muttiah Muralitharan for the upcoming three Test match series against SL to help their slow bowlers. The series will begin in Pallekele on July 26.
Muralitharan is the world’s leading wicket taker with 800 Test wickets to his name and also helped Australian team against Pakistan in 2014.
Cricket Australia (CA) have roped in former Sri Lankan batsman Thilan Samarweera in June to prepare for the SL tour. He worked with Australian batsman at the National Cricket Centre in Brisbane.
Samarweera , who lives in Melbourne, had got the Australian academy to make turning pitches for their batsmen to prepare for the series.
Muralitharan has been working with Nathan Lyon and Steve O’Keefe in the nets for the upcoming series.
“It’s great to have someone like that helping our spinners in this series – to give us that insight. He’s been really good around the group so far, and he’s enjoying his time with us,” skipper Steve Smith said on Muralitharan’s involvement.
“I’m not involved in Sri Lankan cricket at all because there are (other) people who are involved,” Muralitharan, a perennial thorn in Australia’s flesh during his playing days, told Cricket Australia website.
Stuart Law, Former Sri Lankan Head coach will be with the team as batting consultant and Australia have also signed former England bowling coach and the man who coached Victoria win Sheffield Shield during the recently concluded Australian summer as new assistan coach. He takes over from Craig McDermott.
Muralitharan is no stranger to coaching at International lever. He was the bowling coach for Sunrisers Hyderabad in IPL 2016, where they won the championship.
Australia defeated SL when they toured the island country in 2011. The series is unusually beginning in Kandy in order to get the Pallekele Test out of the way before the Esala Perahera – a Buddhist festival – season begins in the city.