Harbhajan Singh became the 11th bowler in the history of cricket to pick up 400 wickets in Test matches today. Harbhajan achieved this landmark on the second day of the third and the final Test match against West Indies at Dominica when he had Carlton Baugh bowled trying to cut a viciously-spinning off-spinner.
Harbhajan Singh Picks Up 400 Wickets In Tests, Joins Kumble, Kapil
Earlier, Harbhajan had gone into the Test match with 398 wickets to his name and only an over earlier, had got the 399th. West Indies captain Darren Sammy was the victim, when he had inside-edged the bowler to the short-leg.
With this, Harbhajan Singh has joined an elite list of cricketers, that includes two other Indians, Anil Kumble and Kapil Dev. Kumble had ended his career with 619 wickets while Kapil was once the leading wicket-taken in Test match cricket with his 434.
Kapil’s record was broken by West Indian pace bowler Courtney Walsh, who retired on 519, but since then, there were four other bowlers who went past him. There is Glen McGrath, who had 563, Kumble, who got his 600-plus bag, Shane Warne, who snared 708 while the pride of place belongs to Muthiah Muralitharan, who ended his career with a wicket off the last ball he bowled – incidentally, also his 800th!
Interestingly, amongst those who have taken 400 wickets or more, Harbhajan has the poorest average, that of almost 32. No other bowler has conceded more than 30 runs per wicket amongst the rest. In fact, in the list of the top-20 wicket-takers, there is only bowler other than Harbhajan Singh whose averages tops 30, New Zealand spinner Daniel Vettori.
Harbhajan’s economy rate amongst those with more than 400 Test match wickets is also the highest at 2.82, as is his strike-rate (balls required per wicket).
Harbhajan will now look to overtake Curtly Ambrose, who has 405 Test wickets to his name and will hope to have got to more than 414 by the end of the tour of England.
Harbhajan got to his 100th wicket in his 25th Test match, took 46 for 200 wickets, 72 for 300 and a further 24 game for the last 100 wickets. His average improved to below 30 for the first time in his 10th Test match in 2001 and between 2001 and 2006, only once did it rise up above 30. However, since 2006, it has remained above 30 on most occasions.
West Indies and Zimbabwe are Harbhajan’s favourite opponents, as he averages 22.9 and 24.5 against them, while having a mean of 28.4 and 29.3 against South Africa and Australia respectively. If one were to go by statistics alone, Harbhajan does not like bowling against Pakistan, as he averages more than 50 against the arch-rivals.
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