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Colombo/Mumbai: Frustrated with his failure to provide Sri Lanka the breakthroughs in the ongoing Test series against India, ace off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan says he is no longer the dreaded bowler he used to be and might even retire completely before the 2011 World Cup.
Muralitharan, who has already announced his Test retirement after next year's series against the West Indies, said he may walk into the sunset before the 2011 World Cup in the sub-continent. Sri Lanka is currently trailing 0-1 in the three-match Test series against India the final game of which starts December 2 in Mumbai.
"I am 37 years old and I can't bowl as much as those days because after 15-16 overs I get tired. But I will try and play a little bit of one-day cricket that's only 10 overs to bowl. If I find everything is not going well I might retire from both forms of the game before the World Cup," Muralitharan said.
"Everything depends on how much my body can take. My body may hold for one-day cricket because it's a fifty-over game. In Test cricket it's a little bit harder because I have always been a threat to other sides. At the moment it's not looking like that because others are playing me well. I think I made the right decision to retire from Test cricket at the end of the West Indies series next year," he was quoted as saying by 'The Nation'.
"Two to three years ago it was not like this. Now you have niggles here and there and my groin is not the same as it used to be. We got the worst conditions of bowling in the last two Tests. We didn't have the bowlers when we were bowling that was one of the factors.
Muralitharan, who is on his fourth and last tour of India, has been struggling to come to terms with the placid Indian pitches and the hosts' strong batting line-up which has treated him harshly in the series so far.
The world's highest Test wicket taker's bowling figures after the two Tests so far are ordinary to say the least five wickets for 396 runs at an average 79.20.
