Warne-Muralidaran Trophy

Warne–Muralitharan Trophy

The Warne-Muralitharan Trophy
Countries	Australia  Sri Lanka
Administrator	Cricket Australia Sri Lanka Cricket
Format	Test cricket
First tournament	2007–08
Last tournament	2016
Next tournament	2018-19
Tournament format	Test Series
Number of teams	2
Current trophy holder	Sri Lanka
Most successful	Australia (3 titles)
Most runs	Michael Hussey (994)
Most wickets	Rangana Herath (56)
Australian cricket team in Sri Lanka in 2016

The Warne–Muralitharan Trophy is awarded to the winner of the Australia–Sri Lanka Test cricket series from 2007–08 season onwards. The trophy is named after the two leading wicket takers in Test cricket, Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan (who prefers to romanise his name as "Muralidaran") and Australia's Shane Warne. The trophy celebrates the 25th anniversary of Australia–Sri Lanka Test cricket. The trophy features casts of the two bowlers' right hands and match-used cricket balls bowled by them during their careers.Sri Lanka Cricket, the governing body of cricket in Sri Lanka had written to its Australian counterpart, Cricket Australia, that the winner of the series should be awarded a trophy named after the two bowlers. Cricket Australia had responded positively to the Sri Lankans' proposal. In unveiling the trophy, Cricket Australia said in a statement,

...The two greatest bowlers in world cricket history have lent their names to a perpetual prize that will be played for in the Test series between Australia and Sri Lanka.

The Warne–Muralidaran trophy became the latest addition to the series of trophies named after former players such as the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, for Test series between Australia and India and the Chappell–Hadlee Trophy which is contested between Australia and New Zealand in ODI format.

Before the Warne–Muralidaran Trophy, (1983–2004), Australia and Sri Lanka had played each other 18 times in the 21-year period, there had been four tours each in each country. Out of the 18 tests Australia had won 11 times while Sri Lanka had won only once, in 1999, and 6 Tests had been drawn. The following were all regular, not Warne-Muralidaran Tests between the two countries: