Warne's entry in 300-club and others' record (12 Jan 1998)

12 January 1998

Warne's entry in 300-club and others' record

By M. Shoaib Ahmed

Australia's leg-spinner SHANE KEITH WARNE became the second bowler from his country to take 300 wickets in Test cricket when he had South Africa's Jacques Kallis clean bowled, on January 5, 1998, the fourth day of the second Test at SCG, Sydney.

Warne, who was playing his 63rd Test, is the 13th player to take 300 wickets, behind record holder Kapil Dev of India, New Zealand's Sir Richard Hadlee, England's Ian Botham, West Indies' Malcolm Marshall, Imran Khan of Pakistan, Dennis Lillee of Australia, West Indies' Courtney Walsh, Pakistan's Wasim Akram, England's Bob Willis, West Indies' Curtly Ambrose and Lance Gibbs, and England's Fred Trueman.

Of the thirteen 300 wickets takers in Tests, eleven come in the category of quick bowlers, ranging from fast to medium-fast. Only one (excluding Warne) West Indian Lance Gibbs, was a slow off-spinner. Lillee and Hadlee have the highest strike-rate of most wickets per Test in excess of five per match, closely followed by Warne, Trueman and Marshall with just under five wickets per Test. Fred Trueman was thefirst bowler to cross the milestone of 300 wickets in Test cricket on August 15, 1964. Lance Gibbs was the next to do so on December 12, 1975; followed by Dennis Lillee on 27th November, 1981; Bob Willis the fourth to reach 300 wickets on August 1, 1983; Ian Botham the fifth to do so on August 9, 1984; then Richard Hadlee on 21st February, 1986; Kapil Dev the seventh to do so on

7th January, 1987; Imran Khan reaching the target on 4th July, 1987; Malcolm Marshall entered 'The 300 club' on December 29, 1988; Courtney Walsh the tenth to reach 300 wickets on 26th August, 1995; Wasim Akram the eleventh to do so on August 26, 1996, Curtly Ambrose reaching the target on June 13, 1997 and Shane Warne the latest entrant to reach on January 5, 1998. Malcolm Marshall has taken 376 wickets in 81 Tests with a truly impressive strike-rate of 4.64 wickets per Test and with the lowest bowling average of least runs conceded to claim each Test wicket among the thirteen bowlers with 300-plus aggregate, as shown in the table hereunder.

After Marshall, Trueman had the best average of least runs conceded per wicket, with Hadlee just fractionally, behind him, closely followed by Imran and Lillee.

Hadlee had the best individual bowling performance to his credit in the 300-club, 9 for 52 versus Australia at Brisbane 1985-86. With Kapil Dev a close second, 9 for 83 against West Indies at Ahmedabad 1983-84. It will be observed that the charismatic Ian Botham stormed his way to the quickest 100 wickets, achieving the milestone in 19 Tests.Thereafter, the ineluctable Dennis Lillee took overand raced to the quickest 200 and 300 wickets milestones. Hereunder is the tabular summary in this category.

Source:: Dawn (https://dawn.com/)