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| October 16, 2005 | Sunday | Ramzan 11, 1426 |
McGrath top wicket-taking Test paceman
SYDNEY, Oct 15: Australia’s Glenn McGrath Saturday became the greatest wicket-taking paceman in Test cricket with two wickets to overtake West Indian Courtney Walsh.
McGrath captured the prized wicket of West Indian superstar Brian Lara (5) and new Indian skipper Rahul Dravid (0) to lift his Test tally to 520 wickets in his 113th Test match.
That enabled him to leapfrog one-time world record-holder Walsh’s total of 519 wickets.
“It is a big honour because Courtney was a cricketer that I looked up to and admired, a freak of a player who competed for 21 years straight without hardly taking a break,” McGrath said.
“I can’t see myself catching the next two (Warne and Muralitharan) but without doubt my next goal is to reach the 600 Test wicket goal.”
Australian teammate and leg-spinner Shane Warne is the leading Test wicket-taker with 626 ahead of Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan (560), who took two wickets in Australia’s first innings here.
Dravid edged McGrath to wicket-keeper Adam Gilchrist for a six-ball duck and just before lunch, McGrath snared the coveted wicket of Lara, leg before wicket for five off eight balls on referral to the third umpire.
It continued a sorry Super Series for Lara, who scored only five runs in three knocks in last week’s one-day series in Melbourne.
Leading Test wicket-taking fast bowlers:
Glenn McGrath (AUS) 112 520 21.28 28/3
Courtney Walsh (WIS) 132 519 24.44 22/3
Kapil Dev (IND) 131 434 29.64 23/2
Richard Hadlee (NZL) 86 431 22.29 36/9
Wasim Akram (PAK) 104 414 23.62 25/5
Curtly Ambrose (WIS) 98 405 20.99 22/3
Ian Botham (ENG) 102 383 28.40 27/4
Shaun Pollock (RSA) 94 377 22.09 16/1
Malcolm Marshall (WIS) 81 376 20.94 22/4.
Waqar Younis (PAK) 87 373 23.56 22/5.—Agencies
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