Murali misses perfect 10

Muttiah Muralitharan missed his tryst with cricketing history on the second morning of the second Test in Kandy when left-arm pace man Chaminda Vaas grabbed the tenth and final wicket of the Zimbabwean innings.

The 29-year-old offie finished with nine wickets for 51 runs from 40 overs after nearly becoming the third man in history to take ten wickets in an innings after Jim Laker (10 for 53) and Anil Kumble (10 for 74).

Muralitharan despite failing to claim all ten wickets has set a new world record by becoming the first bowler in Test history to take 9 wickets in an innings twice.

Murali's participation had been doubtful after he dislocated his ring finger trying to take a catch on the square leg boundary off the last ball of the first day. He had also torn ligaments around the finger joint and will require surgery at the end of the series, according to team physiotherapist Alex Kontouri.

The spinner was, however, determined to bowl on Saturday morning and, with a doctor on stand-by should he need to take a pain-killing injection, he took the field to bowl the first over.

Murali almost grabbed the last wicket from a bat-pad chance and then had a good shout for leg before off the penultimate ball of his first over turned down by umpire Venkatraghavan.

In the next over, Vaas bowled some very harmless medium pace but still found the edge of Henry Olonga's bat for wicket keeper Kumar Sangakkara to take an easy catch.