Murali crowned as Most Valuable Test Player of 21st Century

World's highest Test wicket-taker Muthiah Muralitharan has been named as the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the 21st Century by the Wisden Cricket Monthly.

The magazine in consultation with the CricViz, the world’s leading cricket analytics company, has released the top 30 Test players of the 21st Century and Sri Lankan off-spinner tops the list.

"We have collected the data from the year 2000, so the list is for the period 2000-2020", Sam Stow, the Marketing Director, Wisden Cricket Monthly, said.

"Out of Murali's total 800 Test wickets, his 573 wickets in 85 matches were taken from January 1, 2000 to 2010. Only person ahead during this period is James Anderson with 584 but he has played 151 games (2000-2020)", he added.

"CricViz’s ‘Match Impact’ model, which sheds new light on a player’s contribution, found Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan to be Test cricket’s most valuable player of the 21st century so far. Raw numbers alone speak to Murali’s brilliance, but the CricViz model allows us to delve deeper, revealing his unrivalled impact on Test cricket over the last 20 years”, Jo Harman, Wisden Cricket Monthly magazine editor, speaking exclusively said.

"Murali and Glenn McGrath stand out as the two most impactful bowlers in this analysis by a distance. In this investigation we are analysing the impact of players, not judging who is best, and as a spinner who bowled marathon spells, the Sri Lankan had greater opportunity to dominate Test matches”, Freddie Wilde, CricViz analyst, speaking exclusively explained.