Australian great Shane Warne has released a statement through Cricket Australia to publicly congratulate Sri Lankan Muttiah Muralitharan for breaking his world record.

Leg-spinner Warne, who retired from international cricket in January with 708 Test wickets, was finally overtaken as was expected by the off-spinner, who bowled England’s Paul Collingwood to go to 709.

“Congratulations to Murali - he's been a wonderful player for a long period of time,” Warne said in the statement.

“He's an excellent competitor and has been great for Sri Lankan cricket. He's a great bloke too. I've been to Sri Lanka to help him after the Tsunami and we now even have a trophy named after the two of us.

“He'll probably go on and get 1000 now but today I'd just like to say ' well done on the record '.”

The inaugural Warne-Muralitharan Trophy was contested last month and as Ricky Ponting’s Australia team beat Sri Lanka 2-0.