Where were you?

I was awoken early by torrential rain on Day 5 of the first test in Galle between Sri Lanka and India. An historic cricketing day was looming and the late monsoon weather was putting a spanner in the works and threatening to derail proceedings.

All at the Galle International Stadium understood the significance, rolled up their sleeves, readied the elbow grease, and got stuck in as soon as a gap in the weather was presented. Four hours later following a tremendous effort from the 135 members of the ground staff and we were underway and surprisingly on time.

Once play started it was always going to be about one event as the cricketing globe focused sharply on the southern tip of Sri Lanka in anticipation of something special.

The spin wizard was rounding off his 18 year test career and striving for the magical number of 800 victims. I must admit that, over a quiet coffee at breakfast that morning, I thought about the exciting prospect that I may be on air when that news reverberated to all corners of the sporting world.

It wasn't long before frustrating hours mounted as stoic resistance from India's tail sapped energy from everyone but steadily raised expectation.

Murali kept whirling away. He had dismissed Harbhajan after only 20 minutes of play earlier but was then made to toil for a further three hours before the memorable magic moment happened and all of Sri Lanka burst with pride.

It was a sporting achievement that cricketing fanatics will remember forever. At precisely 1:54 pm on the 22nd of July, Muttiah Muralitharan struck in whites for the very last time and another milestone was conquered. Many will remember for decades where they were at that exact moment. I certainly will, I was calling it live. I was privileged.

From then on the day unfolded in a celebration of Murali's career. Graphic after graphic detailing the exploits of the magician filled our television monitors. Our Ten Sports stats man, Mohan Menon, was in his element. Those guys live for these moments and Mo was riveted, researching, and reeling off numbers and names at the rate of knots!

Just in case you missed Mohan's superb work I thought I would replicate the test records held by Murali for you to study one more time. They deserve further scrutiny; such has been his dominance in the game.

Sit back and relax, take a deep breath and feast your eyes on this extraordinary list of achievements. His like will never be seen again.

* The most test wickets (800 wickets).
* The most five-wicket hauls in an innings at test level (67).
* The most 10-wicket hauls in a match at test level (22).
* He is the only player to take 10 wickets/match against every test playing nation.
* Only player to take 10 wickets in a test in four consecutive matches. He has achieved this feat twice.
* Only player to take 50 or more wickets against every test playing nation. * Muralitharan and Jim Laker (England) are the only bowlers to have taken nine wickets in a test innings twice.
* Seven wickets in an innings against the most countries (5).
* Most test wickets taken bowled (168), stumped (47) and caught & bowled (35).
* Most successful bowler/fielder (non-wicket keeper) combination – c. Mahela Jayawardene b. Muttiah Muralitharan (76).
* Most Man of the Series awards in test cricket (11).
* One of only six bowlers who have dismissed all eleven batsmen in a test match. Jim Laker, S Venkataraghavan, Geoff Dymock, Abdul Qadir and Waqar Younis are the others.
* Most test wickets in a single ground - 166 wickets at SSC, Colombo.
* The only bowler to capture 100-plus test wickets at three venues, the Sinhalese Sports Club Ground in Colombo (166 wkts), the Asgiriya Stadium in Kandy (117) and the Galle International Stadium in Galle (111).
* The only bowler to take 75 or more wickets in a calendar year on three occasions, achieving it in 2000 (75 wkts), 2001 (80) and 2006 (90).
* Has delivered most overs (7339.5) and maidens (1794) in tests, more than any other bowler.

How fortunate we have been to witness such an artist.

I was there!