The impact of bowlers n Tests, home and away
Y Muralitharan is rless and the ian cricket team bbly without offie win at home
In the second Test nst India, James Anderson a five-wicket haul in the innings to move to 110 wickt Lord’s. o other fast bowler has n over 100 wickets at a single e. Two spinners have: Sri ans Rangana Herath (102 ets at Galle) and Muthiah alitharan (111 wickets at e, 117 wickets at Kandy and wickets at Colombo’s SSC nd). Anderson, 39, is also most prolific pace bowler at e with 396 wickets, a record Stuart Broad (341 wickets) come close to. t who are the most consistwicket-takers, home and y? And how have some of influenced their teams’ fors? r starters, there is no doubt alitharan’s record in 133 —most wickets (800), most wicket hauls (67) and most icket hauls (22)—will ain untouched for a long . st over 61% of his career —493 wickets to be exact— come at home but it’s that age of 19.56 (the only bowler
it under 20 runs at home) makes him an all-time great. as the foremost reason Sri a were such a top bowling at home for nearly 15 years. 415 of those 493 wickets ed Sri Lanka stay unbeaten Tests (including 37 wins) at e in a career spanning from to 2010 is proof of Muralin’s impact. He is in a league s own home or away, but e are a handful of other ers who are close to unplayin home conditions. ch as Anderson. He has n 63.25% of his total wickets ome, 330 out of those 396 s coming in wins and draws ngland. A little ahead are ath (64.2%) and Broad 7) who has also partnered erson to make the Dukes sing in English conditions. o one playing now has done e damage at home than Ravichandran
Ashwin (69.24%). With 24 five-wicket hauls and six 10-wicket hauls in 47 Tests, he is just shy of the home records of Anil Kumble (25 fifers and seven 10-wicket hauls) and Herath (26 fifers and seven 10-wicket hauls). Since his debut in 2013, Ashwin gave India a new impetus after Kumble and Harbhajan Singh retired, with an overwhelming 263 out of his 286 wickets at home contributing to 36 unbeaten Tests. Right now, only Kumble has a better overall home record than Ashwin (301 out of 350 wickets in 51 wins and draws).
Muralitharan is second on the list for most wickets away from home with 307 scalps, with over a third coming in India (40 wickets), Bangladesh (29 wickets) and Pakistan (50 wickets) where the pitches are almost similar to what he got at home. But Muralitharan also has 48 wickets in eight Tests in England and 35 wickets in six Tests in South Africa, once again underlining his impact even in challenging conditions.
The Shane-glenn show
Shane Warne is a rare spinner who has more wickets away (362, the highest ever) than at home (319) despite very little success in India—34 wickets in nine Tests, compared to 48 in nine Tests in Sri Lanka, 49 in nine Tests in New Zealand and 61 in 12 Tests in South Africa. Warne was at his most prolific in England where he claimed a staggering 129 wickets in 22 Tests. It is the most by any bowler in an away country.
Warne was a match winner in every sense but it was his partnership with fast bowler Glenn Mcgrath that made Australia such a world-beating team till 2007. Like Warne, nearly half (48.66%) of Mcgrath’s wickets were away from home. Together, they scalped 750 wickets in 71 Tests that Australia won (home and away), easily the most by any pair.
Some fast bowlers have got more wickets away from home simply because they have played more there. Like Courtney Walsh, who held the world record of most Test wickets till Warne broke it in 2004, earning over half his haul (55.87% or 290 wickets) in 74 away Tests (compared to 58 at home) even though that hasn’t affected his averages (23.7 at home and 25.03 away) or strike rate (58.9 at home and 56.9 away). Similarly, Malcolm Marshall (50 Tests away and 30 at home) and Wasim Akram (62 Tests away, 40 at home and one on neutral ground) have outstanding figures both home and away.
Kapil Dev too has been equally good at home (219 wickets in 65 Tests at a laudable strike rate of 55.7) and away (215 wickets in 66 Tests at a strike rate of 72.2). But no one quite comes close to Sir Richard Hadlee whose 86 Tests were split equally between New Zealand and other countries.
With 230 wickets (or 53.36% in a career haul of 431 wickets) at a strike rate of 48.9 (the best for any bowler to take at least 200 wickets away from home) in just 43 away Tests, Hadlee’s numbers are truly exceptional considering he more or less carried the New Zealand bowling after Lance Cairns retired in 1985.
Strike like Steyn
On the matter of strike rates— always an effective measure of a bowler—dale Steyn (439 wickets in 93 Tests) has few equals. Among all bowlers to have taken at least 200 wickets at home, Steyn has a strike rate of 40.2 for 261 wickets (205 of them coming in wins and draws), better than Ashwin (47.8), Dennis Lillee (49.9), Broad (50.6) and even Muralitharan (50.8).
He even tops the all-time list of bowlers with at least 300 career wickets with a strike rate of 42.3, better than Waqar Younis (43.4), Marshall (46.7) and Allan Donald (47). Kagiso Rabada (213 wickets in 47 Tests) is the only current fast bowler with a better career strike rate of 41.2 but in terms of longevity he has a long way to go before catching up with his compatriot.