Within striking distance of 700 Test wickets, spin icon Muttiah Muralitharan meets Editor-in-Chief of The Indian Express Shekhar Gupta on NDTV’s Walk The Talk programme at the Sri Lankan village he helped rebuild after the tsunami. He says he has no problems bowling with Darrell Hair as umpire and calls Bishan Bedi’s criticism of his action senseless

• Hello and welcome to Walk the Talk, I am Shekhar Gupta at the village of Seenigama on the southern coast of Sri Lanka and my guest today is somebody that Steve Waugh described as the Don Bradman of bowling. Muttiah Muralitharan, welcome to Walk the Talk. I believe you’re as good at rebuilding as destroying?

(Laughs) Not really, actually because of the tsunami, we’ve come to the village.

• You destroy batsmen’s innings, but you’ve rebuilt this village that had been completely destroyed by the tsunami.

Yes, we had a foundation before with Kushil Gunasekera (Murali’s manager) and he did everything. I was collecting the funds and getting help from various people.

• And Chaminda Vaas as well?

Yes, he is also one of the members of the foundation, what he did was help the poor before the tsunami, make sure their lives were in place. On December 26, the tragedy happened in this village, houses were damaged and nearly a thousand people died right here in this area. So we thought of helping these people and that’s why through various people we’ve built around 6,000 houses now.

... contd.