5 instances when cricketers survived near death experiences

#4 Muttiah Muralitharan narrowly misses the tsunami

Muttiah Muralitharan had a close shave with the tsunami

Muttiah Muralitharan had a narrow death experience with the tsunamis which wrecked havoc in south Asia and claimed over 21,000 lives.

Muralitharan was in the southern coastal city of Galle with his manager Kushil Gunasekera. They were handing out bats to underprivileged children. They had driven out of town to distribute the bats. As they lef their town, the waves hit soon after.

"I missed the wave by 20 minutes," Muralitharan said. "I had only just left Galle so I am very lucky to be alive. The wave was over 20 feet [six metres] high and it went two kilometres inland. A lot of our cricketers are from there and we don't know how their families are. My manager barely survived. His house is gone. Galle is totally under water and a lot of people are missing or dead. There are people everywhere screaming."

This was the fifth largest earthquake in the past 100 years. Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, Thailand, the Maldives, Malaysia and the Andaman Islands were also affected.

"Something like this has never happened to my country," he said. I had just been there giving poor children some bats. I had finished doing that and was driving out of Galle when this happened. There was no warning. It is a very, very bad situation.