54 Tests, 300 wickets! R Ashwin sails past Dennis Lillee as India beat Sri Lanka
Nagpur: As Virat Kohli’s Team India cruised to an innings victory over Sri Lanka in the second Test match here, spinner Ravichandran Ashwin created history as he became the fastest bowler to take 300 Test wickets, getting to the milestone in just 54 matches.
In the process, he has overtaken Australia’s Dennis Lillee, who took 56 matches to the triple hundred mark.
Coincidentally, it was exactly 36 years back when Lillee created the milestone.
November 27,1981: Lillee became the fastest to take 300 Test wickets
— Umang Pabari (@UPStatsman) November 27, 2017
November 27,2017: Ashwin broke Lillee's record to become the fastest to 300 Test wickets. #INDvSL
While Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan took 58 matches to reach the milestone, West Indies' Malcolm Marshall took three more matches than him, as he reached the mark in just 61 innings.
Interestingly, South Africa's Dale Steyn, too took the same number of matches as Marshall to reach the 300-wicket mark.
The elite list includes other former Indian bowlers, such as Anil Kumble (66 innings), Harbhajan Singh (72), Kapil Dev (83) and Zaheer Khan (89), all of him have taken 300 or more Test wickets.
Read: India thump Sri Lanka by innings and 239 runs to win Nagpur Test
In the match which concluded at the Vidarbha Cricket association stadium here, Ashwin was close to taking ten wickets in the match, but finished with eight, having taken four wickets in each innings.
During India’s tour to Sri Lanka in July this year, Ashwin had taken 17 wickets in just three Test matches. Meanwhile, back in 2015, during another tour to the Island nation, he had taken 21 wickets in the same amount of matches.
Despite being overlooked for Virat Kohli’s limited-overs side, Ashwin has performed well in the longer format for the Men in Blue, having taken 52 wickets in just 10 Test matches in 2017.
The second Test match here was completely dominated by the hosts, as a double ton by captain Virat Kohli (213), and centuries by Cheteshwar Pujara (143, Murali Vijay (128) and Rohit Sharma (102) played a crucial part in the match, taking a lead of 405 runs.
Sri Lanka were unable to reply back strong, being bundled out for 166, despite a good knock by captain Dinesh Chandimal, who scored 61 runs.
Both the teams will now head to New Delhi, where they will face-off for the third Test starting on Saturday.
