Stats Analysis

Ashwin - the fastest to 250 Test wickets

R Ashwin reached 250 Test wickets on the fourth day of Hyderabad Test, becoming the quickest to the landmark

Bharath Seervi
12-Feb-2017
R Ashwin broke Dennis Lillee's record for fastest to 250 Test wickets  •  ESPNcricinfo Ltd

R Ashwin broke Dennis Lillee's record for fastest to 250 Test wickets  •  ESPNcricinfo Ltd

45 Number of Tests in which R Ashwin has completed 250 wickets - the quickest by any bowler. He bettered Dennis Lillee's record of 48 Tests by three matches. Among India bowlers, the fastest was Anil Kumble - 55 Tests.
232 The previous most wickets by a bowler in his first 45 Tests, by Dale Steyn. The previous most wickets by a spinner in 45 Tests were 218 by Muttiah Muralitharan. No bowler from India had taken even 200 wickets in his first 45 Tests before Ashwin. Harbhajan Singh with 199 wickets had the most at that point till now.
Most wickets in first 45 Tests
Bowler Balls Wkts Ave SR 5WI 10WM
 R Ashwin  12905  250  25.15  51.6  24  7
 DW Steyn  9221  232  23.31  39.7  15  4
 DK Lillee  11887  230  23.53  51.6  17  5
 Waqar Younis  9191  227  21.53  40.4  19  4
 AA Donald  10370  223  22.21  46.5  13  2
0 Number of bowlers who have taken more wickets than Ashwin since his debut. Ashwin is closely followed by Rangana Herath, who has picked up 247 wickets in 46 matches. Among India bowlers, no one has picked up even half of Ashwin's wickets - Ravindra Jadeja has 112 scalps.
55 The number of matches taken by the previous quickest bowler from India to get the milestone - Anil Kumble. Ashwin has bettered him by 10 matches. Number of matches by other India bowlers: Bishen Bedi (60 matches), Harbhajan Singh (61), Kapil Dev (65) and Zaheer Khan (73).
1 Bowler to have reached the 250 wicket mark faster that Ashwin in terms of time. Graeme Swann got 250 wickets in 4 years and 345 days while Ashwin took 5 years and 95 days to reach this mark.

Bharath Seervi is stats sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo. @SeerviBharath