Muralitharan Leads Men’s Test Cricket With 800 Wickets

Muttiah Muralitharan holds the record for the most wickets in men’s Test cricket: 800 wickets in 133 matches for Sri Lanka and the ICC World XI. Shane Warne is second with 708, while James Anderson is third with 704 and remains the leading fast bowler.

A career wicket aggregate is the sum of the dismissals officially credited to a bowler in Test scorecards. It is not the same as all the dismissals a team completes: under the ICC’s Test playing conditions, for example, a bowler does not receive credit for a run-out.

Most Test wickets: top 10

Rank	Bowler	Team(s)	Tests	Wickets	Average	Strike rate	Five-wicket innings
1	Muttiah Muralitharan	Sri Lanka/ICC World XI	133	800	22.73	55.05	67
2	Shane Warne	Australia	145	708	25.42	57.49	37
3	James Anderson	England	188	704	26.46	56.87	32
4	Anil Kumble	India	132	619	29.65	65.99	35
5	Stuart Broad	England	167	604	27.68	55.79	20
6	Nathan Lyon*	Australia	143	571	30.21	61.50	24
7	Glenn McGrath	Australia	124	563	21.64	51.95	29
8	Ravichandran Ashwin	India	106	537	23.91	50.68	37
9	Courtney Walsh	West Indies	132	519	24.44	57.84	22
10	Mitchell Starc*	Australia	107	445	26.13	45.65	19

*Career still open at the data cut-off. Source: Howstat’s men’s Test career bowling aggregates, retrieved 28 September 2026. Cricket Australia reported Lyon passing McGrath for sixth during the 2025–26 Ashes; the statistical table records his subsequent total of 571 wickets in 143 Tests (cricket.com.au).

Why Muralitharan’s 800 is more than a longevity record

Muralitharan’s lead is 92 wickets over Warne and 96 over Anderson. He also reached his total in fewer Tests than either: 133, compared with Warne’s 145 and Anderson’s 188.

The underlying figures show the scale of the record. Muralitharan conceded 18,180 runs and bowled 44,039 balls for his 800 wickets. Therefore:

• Bowling average: 18,180 ÷ 800 = 22.73 runs per wicket, rounded to two decimal places
• Bowling strike rate: 44,039 ÷ 800 = 55.05 balls per wicket, rounded to two decimal places

He also took five wickets in an innings 67 times and ten in a match 22 times (Howstat’s Muralitharan profile). Those repeated hauls show that the record was not simply a product of appearances.

Muralitharan finished on exactly 800 by taking his final wicket in his final Test in July 2010. The ICC records that the milestone came from the final ball he bowled in Test cricket (ICC Hall of Fame).

What the aggregate does—and does not—tell us

Most wickets measures career output. It rewards quality, but also durability, selection and opportunity. Anderson’s 188 Tests helped him become the first fast bowler to pass 700; he retired in July 2024 with 704 (ICC). By contrast, McGrath took 563 wickets in 124 Tests and has the best bowling average in this top 10, at 21.64.

Strike rate gives another view. Starc’s 45.65 balls per wicket is the quickest among these ten, although his aggregate is much lower at 445. Average measures runs conceded per wicket; strike rate measures balls per wicket; neither should be read as another version of the career total.

Conditions and roles matter too. Spinners may bowl longer spells and carry more of the wicket-taking load on turning pitches, while fast bowlers face different physical demands and often share wickets across a larger pace attack. Teams and eras have also offered unequal numbers of Tests. That is why this table answers “who took the most?”, not automatically “who was the greatest?” A broader judgment should also consider peak performance, home and away records, opposition and era, as in our stats-led ranking of the greatest Test bowlers.

Women’s Test record

Women’s Tests have a separate record table. England’s Mary Duggan leads with 77 wickets in 17 Tests from 1949 to 1963, at an average of 13.49 (Guinness World Records). The much smaller women’s Test schedule makes a direct career-aggregate comparison with the men’s list misleading.