Jasprit Bumrah Became The First Bowler To Take 200 Test Wickets At Below 20 Average

Ace Indian fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah became the first bowler to take 200 test wickets at an average of below 20 during the fourth day of the Boxing Day test against Australia at the MCG on Sunday. He dismissed gun Aussie batter Travis Head in short mid-wicket where Nitish Reddy made no mistake to complete his 200 wickets in the 34th over. The bowler with an unorthodox action but unparalleled consistency reached the milestone in his 44th test.

Earlier legendary West Indian seamer Malcolm Marshall held this feat as he had 376 wickets at 20.94, he is closely followed by his fellow teammates Joel Garner (20.97), and Curtly Ambrose (20.99).

Bumrah now has 202 wickets in just 44 matches at a stunning average of 19.38. Bumrah started the day on a high note, dismantling the stumps of opener Sam Kontas in the 7th over who charged him fluently in the first innings. Then Travis Head became his 200th victim in short midwicket in the 34th over and Mitchell Marsh too nicked an extra bounced delivery from good length in the same over. In the following over, Bumrah went through the defense of wicket-keeper Alex Carey to claim his fourth wicket of the innings, further reducing the Aussies to 91/6 in 36 overs.

Taking 200 wickets in 44 tests made Bumrah the quickest Indian fast bowler to achieve the milestone, breaking great Kapil Dev’s record who took 50 matches to do the same. Amid this historical day, another fascinating statistic appears which is 153 of his 200 wickets have come away from home as he has missed 18 home matches either due to injuries or workload management.

Among several records, another one that was broken today was he eclipsed Ravichandran Ashwin as the Indian to take the most wickets in a WTC cycle, claiming 74 wickets in 14 games already in the ongoing edition while the former bagged 71 scalps in 14 matches in the 2019-21 cycle.

Bumrah has always delivered with the ball for India whether it is a home or away test. Without his deadly and accurate bowling display, India could not have done well in England, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand in the last four-five years.