by Lalith Gunaratne
by Capt. Elmo Jayawardena
by A.C. Yapa
by Dr. Sanjiva Wijesinha
English Newspapers
Daily Mirror
Sinhala Newspapers
Lakbima
Tamil Newspapers
It says much about Murali that you'll never hear a bad word spoken about him. Forget for a moment his prolific on-field record, Murali the man is deeply loved and enormously respected by team-mates and opponents alike. Kumar Sangakkara, his captain and close friend, summed it up most eloquently a few years ago: "The greatest tribute I can pay him is that I have met no finer man. He's great as a cricketer and even better as a human being."
Yet, somehow, Murali is still a little misunderstood. An Indian journalist asked me last week if it was true that Murali was a loner in the dressing room? I laughed out loud.
One thing is for sure: the Sri Lanka dressing room will be a far quieter place without him. Just as his bowling has dominated on the field, his effervescent personality fills any room he occupies. He's such a chatterbox, in fact, that his exhausted team-mates once challenged him to be completely silent for the duration of a three-hour coach trip to Kandy. He lasted about three minutes.
Sri Lankan Genealogy and others of interest at F’s Place
