Stats: Players with most wickets in 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th innings

Every cricketer’s dream is to represent their country at Test level. After this achievement, every batsman want’s to score as many runs and hundreds as he can and a bowler dreams of being among the leading wicket takers and grab a considerable number of five-wicket hauls which is equivalent to tons for bowlers.

Every five-wicket haul gives the player a newfound confidence and in Tests, he also has the opportunity to take a 10-wicket haul in a match. While you might know who has the most number of wickets in Tests, you might not know who has taken the most number of wickets in each inning of a Test.

Someone who knows and has followed the game might assume that it is obvious that Muttiah Muralitharan is the leader in all four innings, but you might be surprised, that it is not the case.

Here is a table that includes players with most Test wickets in 1st innings.

In the first innings Muttiah Muralitharan leads the pack in terms of number of wickets taken and number of balls bowled but Sir Richard Hadlee has the better average than the other four bowlers present in the list.

In the 2^nd innings also, Murali leads the table in terms of number of wickets taken and the number of balls bowled. In this list, we can see only one change with Kapil Dev walking in at the fifth position other than that all four top wicket takers in Test cricket till this day are there.

Here is the list of the top five players with most Test wickets in 2nd innings.

In the third innings, one more Indian bowler Harbhajan Singh makes an appearance, but Australian legend Glenn McGrath misses out.

Here is the list of the top five players with most Test wickets in 3rd innings.

In the fourth innings, we can see Mitchell Johnson is present along with top four Test wicket takers with 80 wickets and in the fourth innings, Murali is at the second place.

Here is the list of the top five players with most Test wickets in 4th innings.

More Stats:

Muttiah Muralitharan has taken most number of 5-wicket hauls in all the four innings (In the first innings, he has equal no. of 5 wicket hauls as Richard Hadlee and in the fourth innings, he has equal no. of 5 wicket hauls as Shane Warne.)

Muralitharan has taken most number of 10-wicket hauls in a match in all four innings as well.

He has earned the most number of maidens in the first and second innings while Shane Warne has bowled the most number of maidens in third and fourth innings.

Here is the table that shows bowlers with most maidens inning-wise.

If we look at the compiled stats of all the innings then Muralitharan beats them all in terms of the wicket, the number of balls bowled, the number of maidens, the number of 5-wicket hauls and also has the most number of 10-wicket hauls in Tests.

Here are his figures in Test cricket: