#OTD in 1998: Muttiah Muralitharan produced his best to decimate England 

Muttiah Muralitharan received a rapturous reception from the crowd (PC: Twitter)

On this day, twenty-four years ago, Sri Lanka spinner Muttiah Muralitharan registered his career-best figures in the red-ball format. His performances helped Sri Lanka to pulverize England in a one-sided encounter at The Oval. 

Sri Lanka takes a big lead in first innings

Invited to bat first, England lost Mark Butcher early, but Steve James and Graeme Hick were proficient to keep the team in good stead. 

However, Muralitharan put an end to the partnership by dismissing James (36), while Suresh Perera following it up with a prize scalp of Alec Stewart (2). It was a strong partnership between Hick (107) and Mark Ramprakash (53) to get England an upper hand. 

Afterwards, it was a terrific innings of 154* from John Crawley, which further propelled the hosts to finish on 445. Muralitharan finished with figures of 7/155. 

In response, Sanath Jayasuriya slammed a sturdy 213 and got a support from Aravinda de Silva (152), which helped Sri Lanka to post a mammoth total of 591, and take a lead of 146 runs. 

Muralitharan blows away English batting line-up

Muralitharan completed the Test match with figures of 16/220

Coming into the second innings, English batters fell to the rampant Muralitharan, who was immaculate with his line-lengths and got purchase from the surface. 

Barring a run-out, all the opposition wickets were taken by Muralitharan, which helped Sri Lanka to dismiss the Three Lions on a score of 181. In this pursuit, the legendary spinner registered his career-best match figures of 16/220. 

Jayasuriya (24*) and Marvan Atapattu (9*) chased down the score of 36 in five overs to win a one-off Test against England by 10 wickets. 

Read more: Chris Silverwood predicts a strong Sri Lankan comeback against Bangladesh