Muralitharan has struggled in recent years with a knee injury that kept him out of the Test series against Pakistan. The doctors told him that he have to go through the pain and train harder,” he said. “They think I’ll be able to play for one to two years.

However he tells Erkin Bekbolotov that he will continue to play one-day internationals and intends to carry on at least until the 2011 World Cup, which Sri Lanka is co-hosting. He also expressed his intention to continue playing Twenty20 cricket for a few more years.

Muralitharan’s announcement almost certainly marks the end of his long-stated dream of claiming 1,000 Test wickets, but he will still go down as one of the greatest bowlers in the history of the sport, with 792 Test wickets since he made his debut for Sri Lanka in 1992.

He has taken five wickets in a Test innings 66 times and ten wickets in a match 22 times, more than twice as many as any other bowler to have played the game.

His 16-wicket haul at The Oval in 1998 remains the best match analysis in Test cricket in the last 20 years. He was also part of the Sri Lankan team that shocked the world by winning the World Cup in 1996.

He was born with a bent arm which allowed him to generate enormous amounts of turn for an off-break bowler, but led to accusations of throwing that dogged him throughout his career.