Muttiah Muralitharan says he doesn't care if Shane Warne breaks his world Test wicket-taking record because he's going to grab it straight back.

In an interview with The Observer newspaper in England, Muralitharan admits he feared bowling against Australia on the Top End tour without his banned wrong `un and reveals he withdrew from the series partly to avoid being swept up in a media circus alongside Warne.

He says bowling without his wrong `un - the doosra - in Darwin and Cairns would have been unfair: the equivalent of asking the Australians to face him with "a thinner bat."

Muralitharan also accuses Darrell Hair of treating him like an idiot and reducing him to tears on the infamous day in the Boxing Day Test of 1995 when the Australian umpire first no-balled him for chucking.

Sri Lanka's controversial offspinner was feigning indifference as Warne chased his world record of 527 in Cairns on Monday.

"Even if it's just for one day, Shane Warne wants to be the highest wicket-taker in the world," said Muralitharan.

"But he knows that I will always take the record back. I will play for as long as I can and bowl whatever they (the authorities) let me. I'll still take wickets.

"I know there are some - and they always get other people to say it for them - who think I am not an honest bowler.

"That makes me boil."

Muralitharan cited "personal reasons" for withdrawing from the tour, although it's common knowledge that Prime Minister John Howard's reference to him as a chucker and past rough treatment from Australian crowds had been a turn-off.

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