rtiiRRAN South Africa. Dec

on 500. C,gb. liban fire current world nr I re|»rts AH' .

L Muralltharan rook al* Inf L, ten overs as Al" ' L-n. lor Ihrlr shore bef”" 111 faring on the k

, He reached J”” w™i' Lhen hi* fourth victim South ft neau captain Shaun Pollock Las given n“ *“ s,l|y

i^uit Pollock had promoted

Hinself in batting order to base runs

Muratftharan. 28. said: “Ue are playing a lot of Test cricket nowadays. If I can play for an-J other five or six years I can , reach 500.

I Lakshman Klriclla. the Srl Lankan minister of tourism and Lport made a presentation to Muralitharan during the tea 'break The United Cricket ■Board of South Africa commis

stoned a framed displ.n of three traditional Zulu stabbing spears to mark his achievement

Muralltharan had match figures of 11 for 161 to take his ■ total of Test wickets to 3p2.

He said: "1 did not expect to j do it here. I thought I would do : J in (the second Test in) Cape

: Fowl."

The world record of 492 is held by Courtney Walsh of the I West Indies.

i Muralltharan reached the milestone in the second lowest number of matches in history He was playing bi his 58th Test, two more than Dennis Lillee of Australia needed to reach 300 wickets.

Muralitharan is the 17th . player to achieve the feat.

I The bowrler was mobbed by Ms teammates as umpire Rta-

F' fuddin's finger went up to sig-| nal that Pollock was out

’ Muralitharan has been Sri

j 5 Lanka's star bowler since making his debut against Aus-

i . traha in Colombo in 1992 93 No other Sn Lankan bowler has yet reached 150 Test wickets

] The spin bowler, who ’ 5 achieves prodigious turn on ilmost any surface becaause of £ freak ability to rotate his | Mrist. went on to claim his fifth - x Uket of the innings when lb-, lark Boucher was caught at Hnnid-on.

HL It was his 24th five-wicket 5 haul and completed his fifth ,J]bag of ten wickets in a match.

[ I Muralitharan’s best figures I Fof nine for 65 against Erigland I at the Oval in 1998 weie the tkleigiitli best figures tn Test his-'Htory and his match figures of rwl6 for 220 in the same Test tSwere the fifth best.

r a Muralitharan has also pjgclaiined the best figures in one-|»day internationals, seven for 30 ^^gainst India in Sharjah earlier ■phis year. He has taken 211 [Rone-dav International wickets.