Ravichandran Ashwin in the hunt for being the 2nd fastest to 200 Test wickets

Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has been achieving bigger highs as his career progresses. The No. 1 Test all-rounder is inching towards becoming the second fastest bowler to claim 200 wickets in Test cricket.

Ashwin needs 7 more wickets in the upcoming first Test match against New Zealand to achieve the feat as he currently has 193 wickets from 36 Test matches. Former Australia leg-spinner Clarrie Grimmett holds the record for being the fastest bowler to 200 Test wickets, he took just 36 Tests to get to the mark.

Currently, former Australian bowler Dennis Lillee and Pakistan’s Waqar Younis are tied at No. 2 as they reached the milestone in their 38th Test match.

India will take on New Zealand for the first Test match of the 3-match Test series starting on September 22. With the Kiwis not having a good record on the turning tracks in India, Ashwin is expected to overhaul the record.

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The 30-year-old has been in fine form in the recently concluded Test series against West Indies, where he made his mark with both bat and ball. With 2 centuries and a handful of wickets, he was awarded as the Player of the Series, which was the 6th ‘Man of the Series’ award of his career – the most by any Indian cricketer, surpassing the record of some of the all-time legends in the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Kapil Dev, Harbhajan Singh, Rahul Dravid, Mohammad Azharuddin and Sourav Ganguly.

The spearhead of the Indian spin attack, Ashwin is also the fastest to reach the milestone as he bagged 6 MoS awards from just 36 Test matches, in a span of 13 series. Malcolm Marshall, Curtly Ambrose, and Steve Waugh have the same number of MoS awards but took 21, 27 and 54 series respectively to achieve to win them.

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