Marathon Bowling Spells in Test Cricket

Cricket

Posted 1 years ago

Bowlers have to toil hard to get wickets in test cricket. Specially on wickets that are batsmen friendly and that do not offer too much purchase to the bowlers. Pace bowlers tend to bowl short spells as they have longer runups and need more stamina to bowl long spells. Spinners however have been seen to bowl longer bowling spells.

It takes a super human effort and immense concentration to be able to bowl very long spells in test cricket and today we look at some of the marathon bowling performances by bowlers.

To establish a benchmark, we will consider bowlers who have bowled at least 75 overs in a test innings. 26 bowling performances have been witnessed in test cricket since 1877 where a bowler has bowled 75 or more overs in a test innings. Out of which, not surprisingly, only 5 bowlers have been pacers, rest all have been spinners.

The propensity of bowling long spells have come down substantially in the last 20 years or so, this is evident from the fact that in the last 23 years, only 2 instances of such an effort have been seen, once in 2001 and then again in 2017. There can be various reasons for this , which we will discuss in another article.

Sonny Ramadhin of West Indies holds the record for having bowled a mammoth 588 balls (98 overs) in a test innings.

Rank	Bowler	Country	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wickets	Economy	Opponent	Balls Bowled	Match Date
1	Sonny Ramadhin	West Indies	98	35	179	2	1.82	England	588	30-05-1957
2	Tom Veivers	Australia	95.1	36	155	3	1.62	England	571	23-07-1964
3	Alf Valentine	West Indies	92	49	140	3	1.52	England	552	20-07-1950
4	Chuck Fleetwood-Smith	Australia	87	11	298	1	3.42	England	522	20-08-1938
5	Fazal Mahmood	Pakistan	85.2	20	247	2	2.89	West Indies	512	26-02-1958
6	Bill O'reilly	Australia	85	26	178	3	2.09	England	510	20-08-1938
7	Haseeb Ahsan	Pakistan	84	19	202	6	2.4	India	504	13-01-1961
8	Vinoo Mankad	India	82	17	228	5	2.78	West Indies	492	28-03-1953
9	Sonny Ramadhin	West Indies	81.2	25	135	5	1.65	England	488	20-07-1950
10	George Geary	England	81	36	105	5	1.29	Australia	486	08-03-1929
11	Tommy Scott	West Indies	80.2	13	266	5	3.31	England	482	03-04-1930
12	Athol Rowan	South Africa	60	9	167	5	2.08	England	480	05-03-1949
13	Jim Higgs	Australia	59.6	15	148	5	1.85	England	478	06-01-1979
14	Ray Price	Zimbabwe	79	19	181	5	2.29	South Africa	474	14-09-2001
15	Hugh Tayfield	South Africa	59	24	94	3	1.19	Australia	472	24-01-1958
16	George Giffen	Australia	78.2	21	155	6	1.97	England	470	29 Dec 1894
17	Rajesh Chauhan	India	78	8	276	1	3.53	Sri Lanka	468	02-08-1997
18	Steve O'Keefe	Australia	77	17	199	3	2.58	India	462	16-03-2017
18	Tom Cartwright	England	77	32	118	2	1.53	Australia	462	23-07-1964
19	Subhash Gupte	India	76.4	35	128	7	1.66	New Zealand	460	19-11-1955
20	Vinoo Mankad	India	76	47	58	4	0.76	England	456	02-11-1951
21	Jack White	England	75.3	22	136	2	1.8	Australia	453	08-03-1929
22	George Giffen	Australia	75	25	164	4	2.18	England	450	14 Dec 1894
22	Muttiah Muralitharan	Sri Lanka	75	30	174	3	2.32	India	450	19-11-1997
22	Vinoo Mankad	India	75	16	202	3	2.69	West Indies	450	09-12-1948
22	Shivlal Yadav	India	75	18	196	1	2.61	Pakistan	450	24-10-1984