1998
Sixteen for 220
Muttiah Muralitharan took seven for 155 and nine for 65 at The Oval in 1998, in a one-off Test England had led by 445 runs on the first innings. The tenth wicket of the second innings was a run-out by a substitute, which is the only reason the nine was not ten.
England made 445 at The Oval in August 1998 and lost by ten wickets. Muttiah Muralitharan bowled 113.5 overs in the match, 41 of them maidens, and took sixteen wickets for 220. The card lists him as player of the match for 7 for 155, 30 and 9 for 65, and carries a note saying where the figures stand in the whole history of the game.
Four hundred and forty-five
Sri Lanka put England in. Graeme Hick made 107, John Crawley 156 not out, Mark Ramprakash 53, and the last wicket put on 89, Angus Fraser making 32 with two sixes. Muralitharan bowled 59.3 overs for seven for 155. Nobody else took more than two. England’s 445 was made in 158.3 overs and took until the second morning.
Full scorecard: England v Sri Lanka, Only Test, The Oval, 27–31 August 1998 →
Five hundred and ninety-one
Sanath Jayasuriya made 213 from 278 balls with 33 fours, Aravinda de Silva 152, Arjuna Ranatunga 51. The third wicket put on 243, and the card notes it as Sri Lanka’s highest for any wicket against England. Muralitharan came in at eleven and made 30 from 36 balls. The lead was 146, and Sri Lanka had used up most of the third day and some of the fourth to get it.
One hundred and eighty-one
England batted 129.2 overs for 181. The run rate on the card is 1.39. Steve James made 25 from 150 balls, Alec Stewart 32 from 145, Ramprakash 42 from 220, Darren Gough 15 from 133. The ledger of dismissals reads: stumped Kaluwitharana bowled Muralidaran, caught Jayawardene bowled Muralidaran, lbw Muralidaran, run out, caught Tillakaratne bowled Muralidaran, bowled Muralidaran, lbw Muralidaran, caught Kaluwitharana bowled Muralidaran, lbw Muralidaran, bowled Muralidaran, not out.
The run-out was Stewart, by a substitute fielder, Upul Chandana, on for de Silva. Every other wicket was Muralitharan’s: 54.2 overs, 27 maidens, 65 runs, nine wickets. Kumar Dharmasena bowled 19.3 overs, thirteen maidens, for 12 and nothing. Jayasuriya bowled 28 for 30 and nothing.
Sri Lanka needed 36 and got them in five overs, Jayasuriya 24 not out from 17 balls with two sixes, on the fifth afternoon of a match England had led by 445 to nothing at the start of the second.
What the card says about the figures
The match-flow notes on the card do the ranking. The nine for 65 was the best innings analysis by a Sri Lankan and the seventh best in Test history. The sixteen for 220 was the best match analysis by a Sri Lankan and the fifth best of all time. The wicket of Dominic Cork was his 200th in Tests. Each is given as a plain statement in the day-five notes, between a substitution and a batter reaching a thousand runs.
What made it unrepeatable
A run-out by a substitute was the one wicket of twenty that did not go to Muralitharan in the second innings, and the one that kept sixteen from being seventeen. The card shows the substitute’s name in brackets, and the bowler’s name ten times. The match was a one-off, the only Test of the tour, and the card’s coverage list carries the line that the next time Sri Lanka came, they were given three.
The umpires were David Shepherd and Eddie Nicholls, and Suresh Perera, who bowled 40 overs in the first innings, was on debut. It is Test number 1423.
What the card holds
A first innings of 445 that lost by ten wickets. A 213 and a 156 not out on opposite sides. A second innings of 181 in 129.2 overs, at 1.39 an over. Nine wickets for one bowler and a run-out for a fielder who was not in the side. And a note, written into the card, saying the figures were the fifth best there had ever been.
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No. 11 in Unrepeatable, a series of 22.
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