Pitches have evolved a lot over the past almost century-and-half of Test cricket. The varying nature of surfaces asks both the bowlers and batters to make adjustments, in particular in Test cricket.
For the current young generation, bowling has been the stimulating stuff in recent years where, unarguably, the ball has dominated the bat in the past 4-5 years, thus also producing results. Before that, though, in the 2000s and about halfway of the 2010s, pitches were often flat and batting-friendly.
Coming to bowlers, it is a really hard toil work in Test cricket, especially when there is not much help from the surface. Despite that, there have been some epic feats achieved by bowlers in the longest form of the game.
In this article, we have a look at the 5 best bowling figures in an innings in Test cricket history:
Jim Laker – 10/53 vs Australia, 1956
In what was afterward to be known as Jim Laker’s Ashes series, the England off-spinner became the first-ever bowler in Test cricket to take 10 wickets in an innings.
In the 4th Test of the 1956 Ashes in Manchester, Jim Laker spun a dazzling web around the Australian batters and took a staggering 19 wickets in that Test. England batted first and scored 459 runs before Laker had his say.
He took 9 wickets in Australia’s first innings, bowling the visitors out for 84, and England enforced the follow-on. In the second innings, Laker took all 10 Australian wickets for 53 runs as England won by an innings and 170 runs.
Anil Kumble – 10/74 vs Pakistan, 1999
Legendary Indian leg-spinner Anil Kumble became the first-ever Indian and second overall to take 10 wickets in a Test innings. And Kumble spectacularly did it against arch-rivals Pakistan, and in a dire need for Team India when the opening pair of Pakistan had put up a century stand in the chase of 420 in Delhi.
Kumble nipped out the first wicket in the 25th over of the innings. The leg-spinner got on a roll and one by one took all the Pakistani wickets. Pakistan got all out in the 61st over and in Kumble’s 27. The Indian Jumbo got a giant record to his name.
Ajaz Patel – 10/119 vs India, 2021
In just his 12th Test match, New Zealand spinner Ajaz Patel scripted history by becoming only the 3rd bowler to take 10 wickets in a Test innings. It became quite a homecoming for Ajaz as he did it against India at the Wankhede, Mumbai, the city that he had left as a child.
He returned to his birth city and produced a performance for ages. In India’s first innings, even though Mayank Agarwal scored 150 runs, it was Ajaz Patel who one by one dismissed the Indian batters, not really in a dominating manner as Kumble and Laker had in their feats. Some poor shots by the Indian, good fortune of the umpire’s call in case of Kohli’s controversial lbw dismissal, and a couple of terrific catches, all conjured up to give Ajaz this stupendous feat.
India scored 325, New Zealand were bowled out for 62 and 167, but Ajaz’s achievement will never be forgotten.
George Lohmann – 9/28 vs South Africa, 1896
England’s right-arm medium pacer George Lohmann ran through South Africa’s batting order in a 1896 Test between the two sides played in Johannesburg.
Coming in as a first-change bowler, Lohmann returned with stunning figures of 9/28 bowling the hosts out for 151. England won the game by an innings and 197 runs.
Jim Laker – 9/37 vs Australia, 1956
Such incredible was the Manchester Test for Laker, that he gets into this Top 5 list for the second time with his bowling performance in the first innings where he snapped 9 wickets for 37 runs to bundle out the Aussies for only 84.
In 5 Tests in that 1956 Ashes, Laker plucked a total of 46 wickets at a staggering average of 9.60. He took 4 five-wicket innings hauls in the series and two 10-wicket match hauls.
