One of the very few things that give cricketers the legendary tag to their name is longevity. Playing for more years can only mean they have played consistent cricket. One cannot play for a long time without delivering what the team wants consistently. A bowler picking more than 500 wickets in Test cricket is similar to a batsman scoring an aggregate of 10000 runs in a single format.
In fact, it’s quite rarer and a bigger achievement than that.
Only nine players in the history of 100+ years long Test cricket has break the barrier of 500 Test scalps so far. The next closest to this list is Mitchell Starc, who is still a long way behind the milestone number of 500.
With the recent inclusion of Ravichandran Ashwin into this elite club, here is a blog for all these members who went past the magical number – 500 Test Wickets milestone.
Bowlers with 500 Test Wickets
| Player | Matches | Wickets | BBI | 5W/10W |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Muttiah Muralitharan (SL) | 133 | 800 | 9/51 | 67/22 |
| Shane Warne (AUS) | 145 | 708 | 8/71 | 37/10 |
| James Anderson (ENG) | 188 | 704 | 7/42 | 32/3 |
| Anil Kumble (IND) | 132 | 619 | 10/74 | 35/8 |
| Stuart Broad (ENG) | 167 | 604 | 8/15 | 20/3 |
| Glenn McGrath (AUS) | 124 | 563 | 8/24 | 29/3 |
| Nathan Lyon (AUS) | 134 | 539 | 8/50 | 24/5 |
| Ravichandran Ashwin (IND) | 106 | 537 | 7/59 | 37/8 |
| Courtney Walsh (WI) | 132 | 519 | 7/37 | 22/3 |
Key Stats
Among these eight bowlers, there are four spinners (interestingly, two off-spinners, a leg-breaker, and a leg-spinner) and four fast bowlers.
The spin duo – Muttiah Muralitharan and Shane Warne tops the overall list of leading wicket-takers in Test cricket.
Three bowlers from Australia, two from England, and one each from India, Sri Lanka, and West Indies have achieved this feat so far.
Out of these 8, Walsh, McGrath, Warne, Murali, Lyon, and Kumble are the only seven bowlers in Test cricket to bowl more than 5000 Overs in Test cricket.
Other notable stats is, all these eight bowlers are right-handed. The record for the highest wicket-taking left-handed bowlers belongs to Rangana Herath of Sri Lanka, who has taken 433 wickets and ranks 10th overall. He is followed by Wasim Akram (414) of Pakistan and Daniel Vettori (362) of New Zealand.
Every bowler in the above list has at least played one Test in the 21st century. The highest wicket-taking Test bowler, who has not played a single Test in the 2000s, is Kapil Dev, who played from 1978-1994 and took 434 wickets.
The Sri Lankan bowler, Muralitharan convincingly leads the top Test wicket-taker chart with a lead of 92 wickets from the 2nd ranked Australian Warne.
500th Test Wicket Victim List
Here’s a list of the 500th Wicket of all Test bowlers who have achieved the feat:
500th Test Wickets of the Bowlers
| Bowler | 500th Wicket | Against | Year | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Courtney Walsh (WI) | Jacques Kallis | South Africa | 2001 | Trinidad |
| Shane Warne (AUS) | Hashan Tillakaratne | Sri Lanka | 2004 | Galle |
| Muttiah Muralitharan (SL) | Michael Kasprowicz | Australia | 2004 | Kandy |
| Glenn McGrath (AUS) | Marcus Trescothick | England | 2005 | Lord’s |
| Anil Kumble (IND) | Steve Harmison | England | 2006 | Mohali |
| James Anderson (ENG) | Kraigg Brathwaite | West Indies | 2017 | Lord’s |
| Stuart Broad (ENG) | Kraigg Brathwaite | West Indies | 2020 | Manchester |
| Nathan Lyon (AUS) | Faheem Ashraf | Pakistan | 2023 | Perth |
| Ravichandran Ashwin (IND) | Zak Crawley | England | 2024 | Rajkot |
Key Stats
Interestingly, the West Indian opening batsman Kraigg Brathwaite is the 500th victim of both the English bowlers Anderson and Broad.
The other team with three 500th victims is England itself, with Marcus Trescothick and Steve Harmison falling to McGrath and Kumble, respectively, as their 500th scalp. The recent entry to this list is Zak Crawley – the 500th Test wicket of Ravi Ashwin.
Notably, both Warne and Muralitharan have crossed the 500-wicket barrier in two different Tests of the same series.
The pacers in the list, McGrath and Anderson picked their 500th-milestone wicket in the same venue – Lord’s Cricket Ground, London.
Also, the two of the three Australian’s list – McGrath and Warne claimed their milestone wicket away from their home country, whereas others in the list achieved the same at home country venues.
