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When we talk about India, we either talk about great batters or world-class spinners. India is known to be a country which aids spin. Over the years, India’s spin attack has been in very good hands.
Right from the spin quartet of Erapalli Prasanna, Srinivas Venkataraghavan, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar and Bishen Singh Bedi who were superb through the 1960s and 1970s to the pair of Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh in the late 1990s and 2000s to Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja in the 2010s and 2020s, India have been blessed with some quality tweakers who have got the batters to dance to their tunes.
Thus, let’s look back at five of the most successful Indian spinners in the history of Test match cricket.
(Stats as of 24th of October, 2024)
Anil Kumble – 619 wickets
Anil Kumble was arguably one of the biggest match-winners for India in Test cricket. The tall Bangalore leg-spinner had an immense impact every time he had the ball. For nearly two decades, he was India’s premier spinner in the red-ball format. While all the limelight used to be on the top-class Indian batting line-up, Kumble quietly put in consistent performances
He had the ability to run through batting line-ups. The Bangalore-born cricketer was not the biggest turner of a cricket ball but he got it to move just enough and create that doubt in the batter’s mind. His pace, bounce and variations were second to none.
Kumble was the first spinner to take 300+ wickets in Test match cricket for India. He was the first Indian to scale the landmark of 500 and 600 wickets in Test cricket. Having finished with 619 scalps at an average of 29.65 (with 35 five-wicket hauls), Kumble is arguably the greatest and one of the most successful spinners to have donned the Indian jersey. His 619 was the third-highest in Test cricket for a long time before James Anderson went past in 2021.
Ravichandran Ashwin – 531 wickets
Ravichandran Ashwin is definitely on his way to greatness (if he is not already there). The Tamil Nadu off-spinner is definitely one of the reasons why India have been unbeaten at home for nearly 12 years now. His away record is excellent as well.
Be it with the bat or ball, he has produced some brilliant performances in his 14-year-long career. 531 wickets in a mere 104 matches is a terrific record. Ashwin was the fastest to 250, 300 and 350 Test wickets while he was the second-fastest to scale 400, 450 and 500 scalps.
He averages 23.78 which is the second-best in the history of Test match cricket among spinners with more than 200 wickets. Ashwin has picked up 37 five-wicket hauls as well which is the joint second-most in Test cricket history. He has won 11 Player of the Series awards which is the joint-most. The off-spinning great is still winning games for India and looks in great shape. If he remains fit, he is almost certain to go past Kumble’s record of 619 wickets.
Harbhajan Singh – 417 wickets
Alongside Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh was at the heart of India’s spin attack for the entirety of the 2000s. He was someone who wore his heart on his sleeve and never backed down from a challenge.
Harbhajan played eight Test matches in the late 1990s and took 21 wickets before he was dropped. However, the famous Border-Gavaskar in 2001 was the making of Harbhajan Singh. He returned with 32 wickets at an average of 17.03 and bowled India to a famous series win. That was the start of a fabulous two-year period for the Punjab off-spinner as he took a staggering 123 runs in 25 Test matches across 2001 and 2002.
2004 and 2005 were excellent years for him as well before he had another big year in 2008 where he took 63 scalps in 13 Tests. After Kumble retired, Harbhajan’s performances were inconsistent. While he produced some match-winning spells, consistency was an issue. He made a couple of comebacks in 2013 and 2015 but couldn’t make a significant impact. With the rise of Ashwin, he was dropped from the side. Harbhajan last played Test match cricket in 2015 and finished with 417 wickets at an average of 32.46.
Ravindra Jadeja – 306 wickets
In no time Ravindra Jadeja has moved up to the 7th spot on the leading wicket-takers list for India in Test match cricket. He put in some big performances in domestic cricket and impressed in white-ball cricket which made him hard to ignore in the longest format.
Having made his debut in December 2012, Jadeja has become India’s premier all-rounder in Test match cricket. He soon became a reliable customer and even played as the sole spinner during India’s away tours in South Africa in 2013 and New Zealand in 2014. A dip in form saw him being dropped in 2015 before he returned in the same year to dominate South Africa, picking 23 scalps in four Tests. Since then, there has been no looking back for the Saurashtra left-arm spinner.
He has produced some stellar performances in red-ball cricket and has been one of the reasons (alongside Ashwin) for India’s dominance (especially at home) in Test match cricket over the years. Overall, he has taken 306 wickets at an average of 24.14 with 13 five-wicket hauls.
Bishan Singh Bedi – 266 wickets
Be it his guile, deception, loop and spin, Bishan Singh Bedi was a master of his craft. The Amritsar-born left-arm spinner was a consistent performer in Test match cricket in the 1960s and 1970s.
It was very early in his career that he was picked in the Punjab side. He was just 15 years old when he made his first-class debut and just 20 when he made his Test debut. The left-arm spinner took a couple of years to settle down in the side before he starred in India’s first-ever away Test series win in New Zealand. He took 16 wickets at an average of 23.18.
Bedi was consistent across conditions and took wickets in the Caribbean, England and Australia. The Indian spin legend finished his career with 266 wickets which was the most at the time for India in Test match cricket.