Highest number of lbw victims

Kumble tops the lbw charts

Mathew Varghese

July 23, 2007

With Paul Collingwood's dismissal in England's first innings in the first Test at Lord's, Anil Kumble became the bowler with the highest number of lbw dismissals in Test cricket. Kumble has now trapped 139 batsmen leg-before, ahead of Shane Warne, who held the record with 138 such wickets.

More than a quarter of Kumble's Test victims have been dismissed leg-before - a significantly high proportion - though he ranks way below Australia's pacer Terry Alderman, who has 34.12% of his 170 Test wickets coming by way of lbws.

Graham Gooch has been dismissed lbw the highest number of times in Tests. Incidentally, Alderman accounted for five of those dismissals. Three of Gooch's England opening partners - Alec Stewart, Michael Atherton and David Gower (one innings only) are not far behind.

As a proportion of total dismissals, Roshan Mahanama figures in the list for both Tests (minimum 50 matches) and ODIs (minimum 100 matches). Other batsmen to have been trapped in front often include Craig McMillan and Michael Holding, who would have preferred appearing in the bowlers' list.

Daren Ganga missed out on the above table since he's only played 45 Tests. Of the 78 times that he's been out, lbws have accounted for 25, a percentage of 32.05. In the recently concluded Test series against West Indies, Ganga was out lbw to Ryan Sidebottom in both innings of the second Test at Headingley while Steve Harmison had him stuck in front of the stumps twice during the third Test at Old Trafford.

The ODI table is topped by West Indies' Roger Harper, while New Zealand's lower-order batsmen, Chris Harris and Brendon McCullum, have been trapped in front plenty of times as well.

The current crop of left-arm bowlers show remarkable success with lbw decisions in ODIs, with Irfan Pathan, Zaheer Khan, Chaminda Vaas and Mohammad Rafique having the highest percentages of leg-before dismissals (minimum 100 wickets). Surprisingly, Wasim Akram misses out and so does Waqar Younis, the man famous for his toe-crushing yorkers.

Another left-arm spinner from Bangladesh, Abdur Razzak, has 19 leg-before dismissals in his career-haul of 76 dismissals. Pathan's ability to swing the ball into the right-handers makes him successful with leg-before appeals in both forms of the game, with 30.77% of his 91 Test wickets coming in the same manner.

© Cricinfo

	Email

Watch our daily Cricinfo SportsCenter news round-ups Available on Cricinfo.tv     Live scores, results, news, features and more - a click away Download the Cricinfo Toolbar     Live scores, news & ball-by-ball commentary on your phone Cricinfo Mobile

Stories

England v India, 1st Test, Lord's

Matches

England v India at Lord's

Players/Umpires

Anil Kumble

Series/Tournaments

India tour of Ireland, England and Scotland

Teams

India