Top 10 Indian pacers with most wickets in Tests

Top 10 Indian pacers with most wickets in Tests: Indian cricket team which made its international debut in 1932, have been an integral part of the sport since then. It has glorified the very sport with its rich legacy and has gifted the cricketing world with some of the most mind-boggling players the game has ever seen. The likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, V.V.S Laxman, Dilip Vengsarkar, Mohammad Azharuddin, Anil Kumble, Kapil Dev, Harbhajan Singh and many such names have graced the game in uncountable ways.

Though over the years India has developed its image as an outright dominating batting side which has the capacity to pile up big totals on the board but that doesn’t take anything away from the bowlers. We have seen that there are many Indian bowlers who have been extremely successful in Test cricket. The land of India is renowned for producing high quality spinners.

But there have been some pacers as well who have left their mark with some glittering performances under their belt. Today, we will talk about the Indian pacers with most wickets in Test cricket. The list is headed by the greatest Indian fast bowler and one of the best all-rounders of the game, Kapil Dev who scalped 434 wickets in 131 Tests with the help of 23 fifers and 2 ten-wicket hauls. Kapil had the prodigal skill to swing the ball. He is hailed as one of the fittest fast bowlers of the country.

The 2nd position is occupied by Zaheer Khan who has accumulated 311 wickets in Test cricket. His ability to swing the ball upfront and reverse swing the old ball made him a class apart. Zak was brilliant on flat Asian pitches as well. Javagal Srinath who is epitomized as the nation’s fastest bowler ever is stationed at the 3rd position with 236 Test wickets. He use to hit the deck hard and mainly was an in-swinging bowler though he could move it away as well when the conditions were helpful.

The lanky India pacer Ishant Sharma is ranked 4th in the list with 200 Test wickets and today he became only the 4th pacer in the history of Indian cricket to take 200 wickets in Tests. Over the years with experience, he has grown in stature and has become the pace spearhead of the side. Karsan Ghavri with 109 wickets in 39 matches occupies the 5th spot in the list. Though Ghavri was not very express pace wise but had a nippy bouncer in his armor with which he unruffled the batters throughout his career.

Irfan Pathan who was seen as the apparent heir of Kapil Dev has so far taken 100 Test wickets and is placed on the 6th position in the list. Pathan has the meticulous ability to swing the ball both ways. Manoj Prabhakar and Venkatesh Prasad are placed at 7th and 8th position on the list with 96 wickets each. Both the bowlers had the ability to move the ball both ways and had quite a few variations under their sleeves to fool the batsmen.

The 9th and 10th position is occupied by S. Sreesanth and Ramakant Desai respectively. Sreesanth has grabbed 87 scalps in 27 Tests while Desai has taken 74 wickets in 28 Tests. Desai was one of the key bowlers in the era of 1960’s.

Here is the list of Top 10 Indian pacers with most wickets in Tests: