Yasir Shah becomes the second quickest to 150 Test wickets

Yasir Shah, the Pakistan leg-spinner, who was close to losing out his spot in Test team to the 18-year-old Shahbad Khan due to fitness issues, began the first Test match against Sri Lanka on a wicket-taking note. He dismissed the Sri Lankan side’s vice-captain Lahiru Thirimanne early in the first morning of the opening game of the series at Abu Dhabi. With help of this wicket, the 31-year-old completed 150 wickets in his Test career.

Thus, Yasir became the 102nd player and only the 13th from Pakistan to complete 150 wickets in Test cricket. Yasir, who was playing in his 27th Test match, became the joint 2nd quickest to complete 150 wickets in this format. England pacer Sydney Barnes was the fastest to 150 Test wickets as he required only 24 matches to get as many wickets. He ended up with 189 wickets in his Test career that lasted 27 matches.

Yasir shares the 2nd spot with Waqar Younis in the list of quickest to 150 Test wickets as the former Pakistani pacer also needed 27 games. By taking only 27 Tests for 150 wickets, Shah became the quickest among spinners to reach the milestone surpassing Australian leg-spinner Clarrie Grimmett who took 28 games for 150 Test wickets.

The Pakistani spinner was among the quickest to 50 and 100 wickets in the Test format as well taking nine and 16 Tests for the respective milestones in this format. Yasir was the joint 2nd quickest to complete 50 wickets among spinners as Alf Valentine needed only eight Tests.

He is also the quickest Pakistani to the milestone beating Waqar Younis, Shabbir Ahmed and Mohammad Asif, who all needed ten Tests for 50 wickets. The Pakistan leg-spinner was the joint 2nd quickest to reach 100 wickets in Test as England’s George Lohmann (16) got there with one game sooner. Yasir shares the 2nd spot with three players which include Waqar Younis.

Quickest to complete 150 wickets in Test cricket: (In terms of matches)

(Stats as on September 28, 2017)