Stats: Bowlers who never bowled a no-ball in international cricket

Overstepping the popping crease is a common thing for the bowlers in the sport of cricket. It gives the opposition side an extra run in Test matches and a run plus a free-hit in the limited-overs format. Since the inception of free-hit, bowlers have become more vigilant in the aspect of bowling a no-ball. They are aware of the fact that one overstepped delivery can ruin the entire over for them.

The batting side makes full use of the no-ball and the fielding side has to pay the heavy price for it. Overstepping is just a natural thing that can be made on any delivery of any over in the match. Not only extra runs do the bowler and his team concedes but also the batting side gets an additional delivery to accumulate runs. In this sport of uncertainties, one small mistake like a no-ball can cost any team the entire match.

However, there have been few bowlers who have done the impossible and unthinkable task of not bowling a single no-ball in their entire career. Not overstepping for a single match or few matches is understandable but to achieve the feat throughout the career is a big achievement. Some legends who have played this beautiful sport of cricket have registered their names in this list of unique and rare feat.

Let’s take a look at these five bowlers who never bowled a no-ball in Tests and also in the ODIs:

 1. Ian Botham

Legendary England all-rounder Ian Botham played 102 Test matches and 116 ODIs. He took 383 wickets in the longest format of the game and has 145 scalps in the ODIs. Notably, Botham has bowled the third-most balls for England after James Anderson and Stuart Broad across formats which are 28,086.

In 218 matches in International cricket, the right-arm fast-medium bowler took 528 wickets. In Tests, he bowled 21, 815 deliveries and snared 383 scalps with an average of 28.40 and best bowling figures of 8/34. 27 times Botham took five-wicket hauls and four times ten wickets in the match.

In ODIs, he achieved 145 wickets with a 28.54 average and best bowling of 4/31. He bowled 6271 deliveries in 115 innings in the ODI format. Having made his international debut in an ODI in the year 1976, his career spanned 16 years but all this while, he didn’t deliver a single no-ball.