Ka Pae Ranasingam actor Vijay Sethupathi has been roped in to play Sri Lankan bowler Muttiah Muralitharan. The film is titled 800 and will be directed by MS Sripathy. The biopic will trace the struggles faced by the cricketer and his rise to popularity. The film is jointly produced by Movie Train Motion Pictures and Dar Motion Pictures. The title ‘800’ is said to be a tribute to the number of wickets Muttiah Muralitharan has taken in Test cricket. Muttiah Muralitharan is the only cricketer to have taken 800 wickets in Tests. He is considered one of the greatest bowlers in the history of cricket. His 800 Test wickets and 534 ODI wickets put him on top of the leading wicket-takers in both formats and he is the only one of two players after Shane Warne to take over 1000 wickets in all three formats combined.
His list of achievements is simply staggering and his role in making Sri Lanka cricket stronger as well as unifying Sri Lankan society after decades of turmoil due to the civil war with the LTTE makes him an icon. Muralitharan also holds an Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) and thus does not need a visa to come to the country. The reason for this special status – Muttiah Muralitharan’s family originates from India. His grandfather, Periyasamy Sinasamy came from South India to work in the tea plantations of central Sri Lanka in 1920. He settled there for a long time and gave birth to Muralitharan’s father, Muttiah. Sinasamy then returned back to India where he settled down in Tiruchirapalli while Muttiah stayed back in Kandy to run a successful biscuit-making business. In 2005, his India bond became deeper after he married Madhimalar Ramamurthy of Chennai. Madhimalar is the daughter of late Dr S. Ramamurthy of Malar Hospitals, and his wife Dr Nithya Ramamurthy. In 2006, the couple were blessed with their first child, Naren, in January.
