Melbourne: Pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah on Sunday became the second fastest Indian along with Ravindra Jadeja to complete 200 Test wickets and the first bowler ever to reach that milestone with a sub-20 average during the fourth day’s play of the fourth Test against Australia here.
Bumrah dismissed Travis Head (1) for his 200th victim in the post-lunch session, joining Jadeja in the list of bowlers who are fastest to 200 wickets in Tests.
He is also the fastest Indian pace bowler to achieve the feat, going past legendary Kapil Dev who went past the mark in 50 matches.
Both Bumrah and Jadeja achieved the feat in their 44th Test, and overall he is 12th Indian bowler in the format to complete the landmark.
The recently retired Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin was the quickest among Indians to have taken 200 wickets, a feat that he achieved in his 37th Test.
Among all bowlers who have crossed the 200-wickets mark in Test cricket, Bumrah is the only bowler with an average of under 20 which includes some of the fearsome fast bowlers from the West Indies such as Malcolm Marshall (376 wickets at 20.94), Joel Garner (259 wickets at 20), Curtly Ambrose (405 wickets at 20.99) as well as England’s James Anderson (704 wickets at 26.45) and even Glenn McGrath (563 wickets at 21.64).
Ashwin is ranked third in the overall list of bowlers who were fastest to 200 Test wickets, behind two leg-spinners — Pakistan’s Yasir Shah (33 Tests) and Australia’s Clarrie Grimmett (36 Tests).
The dismissal of Head followed by that of Mitchell Marsh’s (0), caught behind the wicket, as Bumrah took his wickets tally in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy to 28.
He had earlier dismissed opener Sam Konstas (8) for his first wicket in Australia’s second innings.
