Ravichandran Ashwin was on fire with a century and a 5-wicket haul in the Chennai Test, setting up India’s win with the first Test match over Bangladesh with his first innings century, and wrapping up the match with six wickets in the fourth innings to complete a comfortable win by 280 runs.
Ashwin’s player of the match performance was the fourth time in his career taking a five-fer and scoring a century in the same match, leaving him behind only Ian Botham, who did it one five occasions.
Ashwin continues to rack up the five-fers as one of the finest spin bowlers in the history of Test cricket. Here is the top 5 as it stands.
The precursor to Ashwin as India’s frontline spinner, Kumble racked up 35 five-fers as the leader of India’s attack. His best performance was the iconic 10-wicket innings against Pakistan at the Feroz Shah Kotla, but his favourite victims were Australia, against whom he took a five-fer on 10 occasions.
Often regarded as the finest cricketer that New Zealand has ever produced, Hadlee was the shining star of a country that was struggling to break out into international cricket throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He took 36 five-fers in his career, which is the shortest on this list in terms of matches with only 86. He also boasts the best average of these five players, an incredible 22.29, and is the only pacer on this list.
The great Shane Warne is considered Australia’s answer to Don Bradman with ball in hand, and his feats with his leg-spin stand out in the great Australian team of the early 2000s. Unsurprisingly, Warne’s biggest victims were the English, against whom he took 11 five-fers. A true unicorn on this list, a spinner who played the majority of his games outside Asia and still succeeded in putting up legendary numbers.
Ashwin tied Shane Warne with his five-fer in Chennai, and is likely to overtake the great man before the end of the year with plenty of Test matches lined up for India. Ashwin has the best strike rate on this list, taking a wicket every 50.51 deliveries, and is also notable for being consistently excellent against all opposition with no stand-out victim.
The runaway leader in terms of five-fers is the legendary Muralitharan, whose record seems almost unbeatable in this department. With 30 more five-fers than Ashwin, Murali took a haul in essentially every other match of his career, which is a remarkable rate. Basically unplayable on Sri Lankan pitches, it is no surprise that he is the greatest Test wicket-taker with 800 to his name.
