Sri Lanka comfortably chased down a modest second innings total of 95 runs to win the Galle Test on Day 5.
Sri Lanka comfortably chased down a modest second innings total of 95 runs to win the Galle Test on Day 5.
Lankan opener T Dilshan scored a quick fire 68* in 47 balls along with T Paranavitarana 23* to lead his team to an infamous 10-wicket victory in the rain-hit Test match.
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The match however belonged to spin wizard Muttiah Muralitharan who achieved his 800-wicket landmark with his last ball in Test cricket.
The off-spinner, 38, had last man Pragyan Ojha caught at slip by Mahela Jayawardene to terminate India's second innings after lunch on the final day of the first Test at the Galle International Stadium.
India, who were made to follow on 244 runs behind, were bowled out for 338 in their second knock, setting Sri Lanka a modest target of 95 runs in the opening match of the three-Test series.
Muralitharan, who has taken more Test and one-day (515) wickets than any bowler in history, will retire from Test cricket after the match but remains open to playing limited-overs games.
He claimed 5-63 in the first innings of his final appearance and 3-128 in the second.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse flew in from the capital, Colombo, to briefly watch the match and presented Muralitharan with a memento during the lunch break.
Some 15,000 fans, including Muralitharan's parents, his Indian wife, Madhimalar, and four-year old son, Naren, faced anxious moments before the landmark was achieved.
The spinner needed 23 overs to claim the last scalp following a doughty rearguard action by India; whose last three wickets added 141 runs after being 197-7 at one stage.
Venkatsai Laxman led the fightback with a defiant 69, adding 49 for the eighth wicket with debutant Abhimanyu Mithun and 68 for the ninth with Ishant Sharma.
India had added five runs to their overnight total of 181-5 when fast bowler Lasith Malinga bowled skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni with a toe-crushing yorker to claim his fourth wicket in the innings.
Muralitharan, who dismissed Yuvraj Singh off the last ball on Wednesday, trapped Harbhajan Singh leg-before in the day's fourth over to move to 799 wickets.
Mithun helped himself to five boundaries in his 25 when he became Malinga's fifth victim in the innings to make India 246-8.
Laxman was run out by a direct throw from Angelo Mathews, but Sharma hung on for 106 deliveries to hit a career-best 31 not out.
Sri Lanka now leads the three-match Test series 1-0
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