On this day, 14 years ago, Muttiah Muralitharan retired from Test cricket: Here are his 5 best spells from the format

1. 9/51 vs Zimbabwe, Kandy, 2002

Muralitharan was rampant against Zimbabwe in the first innings of the match and ended up taking 9 wickets. He followed this up by taking another 4 wickets in the second innings as Sri Lanka cruised to victory by an innings and 94 runs.

2. 9/65 vs England , London, 1998

After his amazing figures of 7/155 in the first innings, Muralitharan went on to stun England again in the second innings but this time he did even better and took 9 wickets to end the test match with 16 scalps under his name. Thanks to these amazing bowling figures, Sri Lanka comfortably won the match by 10 wickets.

3. 8/46 vs West Indies, Kandy, 2005

After Sri Lanka gave a target of 378 to West Indies, Muralitharan stepped up and showed his magic yet again as the Windies crumbled before his outstanding bowling. Thanks to his 8-wicket haul, the visitors were dismissed for only 137 runs and Sri Lanka won the match by a massive 240-run margin.

4. 8/70 vs England, Nottingham, 2006

After Sri Lanka were bowled out for 322 in the second innings setting up a target of 325 runs for England to achieve, Muralitharan’s outstanding spell turned the match into the visitors’ favor. His 8-wicket haul helped Sri Lanka bowl out the hosts on the score of 190 as they won the match by 134 runs.

5. 8/87 vs India, Colombo, 2001

Thanks to Muralitharan’s fantastic bowling in the first innings of the match, Sri Lanka bowled out India for 234 runs. The hosts followed that up by scoring a huge total of 610/6 in their first innings. India weren’t able to catch up and were bowled out for 299 in their second innings where Murali took another 3 wickets. Sri Lanka ended up winning the match by an innings and 77 runs.

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