Muttiah Muralitharan denies Arjuna Ranatunga's claims of 2011 World Cup being fixed

Sri Lankan legendary cricketer Muttiah Muralitharan has ruled out former world cup winning captain Arjuna Ranatunga’s claims of the 2011 World Cup being fixed. He said that there were no instructions to lose the 2011 World Cup final against India. The Sri Lankan spin-wizard spoke to Santosh Menon on the chat show called Chat-athon. He also said that India were the best team and they were the second best during the 2011 World Cup.

The ace spinner also said that injury sustained by him and all-rounder Angelo Matthews were one of the main reasons behind losing in the world cup final at Wankhede, Mumbai. Muralitharan sustained a groin injury in the semi-finals while in-form Matthews was out of the finals because he was injured.

“We had a good opportunity to win in the final, but two things happened. I had a groin injury in the semi final and Angelo Mathews, who was among runs was completely out (final) because he was injured,” said Muralitharan. “The batsmen were scoring runs but the middle order batsmen didn’t click in few matches and the selectors made 3-4 changes and it was far than a regular team,” he added

He also said, “(On winning the toss) the senior players and the selectors were scared of chasing the target and thought of batting first. But in my mind was to bat second because I thought India could chase any target and this was intimated to the team-management. This I had told to them with my previous tour experience of dew factor,” he said. “But Sanga said he has been promised by the match referee that they would spray the chemicals and no dew threat to the final.”

The 45-year old also stated that dew was a major factor and they could do nothing about it. He repeated that there was no match-fixing but few injuries and the dew cost Sri Lanka the coveted trophy.