COLOMBO, Nov 21: Muttiah Muralitharan, the famous Sri Lanka off-spinner of yesteryear, is tipped as a governor of Northern Province following the presidential elections that gave a clear majority to Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a former defence minister of the island nation who in his term defeated Tamil militants headed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, media reports here said, citing anger in the Tamil minority community.
Murli, who scalped 800 Test wickets, is actually an Indian Tamil from Kandy. The 47-year-old had earlier thrown his weight behind Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was on Monday sworn in as the Sri Lankan president a day after he was declared the winner in the closely fought election.
According to reports, Murali will likely join Rajapaksa presidency as the governor of the Northern province, which has a huge majority of Sri Lankan Tamils.
While no official confirmation is out so far, local Tamils are believed to oppose Murali's appointment as the former cricketer had backed Gotabaya when he was the Defence Secretary between 2005 and 2015 and was accused of war crimes. � IANS
Brief Scores: Delhi 167/5 (Dhruv Shorey 48 not out, Himmat Singh 32; Shamshuzama Kazi 2-20) beat Maharashtra 90 all out (Ruturaj Gaikwad 42, Digvijay Deshmukh 9; Nitish Rana 4-17) by 77 runs. � PTI
