Mesmerizing Murali Mantra

Muttiah Muralitharan produced a superb spell of bowling to lead Lancashire to victory over rivals Yorkshire by an innings and 126 runs at Headingley. Resuming the day on 44-1, still 329 runs behind, the hosts got off to a dire start when Andrew Flintoff trapped Joe Sayers lbw in the first over.

Jason Gillespie and Anthony McGrath shared a 79-run stand to offer some hope, before both fell in succession. Muralitharan (5-66) then took control as Yorkshire slumped to 247 all out.

The Sri Lanka spinner enjoyed a purple patch to account for the majority of Yorkshire's lower middle order, Gerard Brophy, Younis Khan and Adil Rashid falling at the cost of five runs in 13 balls.

Muralitharan has now taken at least five wickets in an innings in all 26 Championship matches in which he has played for Lancashire.

The defeat represents a big blow to Yorkshire's title ambitions, while Lancashire now sit just 14 points behind their rivals.

Yorkshire captain Darren Gough said: "We have no excuses because we were outplayed by Lancashire.

"We had a dreadful first hour to the game when we slumped to 22 for five and it was impossible to recover from that."

Lancashire captain Mark Chilton, though, was understandably delighted, saying: "This was a magnificent performance all round and just what we needed after a couple of disappointing results.

"This was a 'must-win' game against the team second in the table and if we had not won it, we would have been struggling but everything now depends on our last five games." (BBC)