Do we like Muttiah Muralitharan?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Decent record and real charity work, held back by one contested political position that deeply upset many Tamils.
Murali comes from a Hill Country Tamil family whose roots are in the tea estates, which is a big deal in Sri Lanka, where that community has long been on the margins. He has said his family understood the cost of the civil war from the inside. Few cricketers have carried that much national weight on their shoulders.
The stoush that defines his public life off the pitch is the 2020 biopic, titled 800. Tamil politicians and film figures in India accused him of betraying Tamils because of his closeness to the Rajapaksa family, who ran Sri Lanka when the war ended in 2009. Actor Vijay Sethupathi, cast as Murali, pulled out under pressure.
On the harm test, there's nothing from him on LGBTQ+ rights, women, climate or vaccines in what we found, and that's honestly a thin record. The sticking point is politics. He told the Hindustan Times in 2019, as reported by The News Minute: “I support President Rajapaksa because he is the right person to lead our country.” Critics say he played down abuses after the war, which is why many Tamils took it badly. Where you land depends on whether you read him as a man backing the government that ended a brutal war, or as lending his fame to people accused of serious wrongs.
Murali's own answer was a letter saying his 2009 comment was misread, and that “I never supported the killing of innocent lives, I never will.” He said the year was the best of his life because the war's fear ended. He also asked Sethupathi to leave the film, saying he didn't want the actor to face trouble. That's a bloke taking a hit rather than dragging someone else into it, though plenty of critics weren't satisfied.
Back in 2013 he also told reporters in Colombo that David Cameron had been misled about conditions for Tamils in the north, which went down badly with those who wanted the war's disappeared accounted for. It's the same pattern: loyal to the government line, and that's what his critics keep coming back to.
The good stuff is substantial. The Foundation of Goodness, which he is closely tied to and helped raise profile for, works across more than 200 Sri Lankan villages from its base at Seenigama, rebuilt after the 2004 tsunami. The News Minute reports he built 1,024 homes in the Northern Province, and says he has helped Eelam Tamils more than his own Hill Country community, a line his critics reject.