Nine of India's Ten Best Test Bowling Figures Ended in a Win. The Only Exception: Kapil Dev’s 9/83, Still Lost by an Innings

In a game against Pakistan in Delhi in 1999, Anil Kumble took 10 wickets with a total of 74 runs. It was accomplished within only 26.3 overs. The only Indian bowler to score all his 10 wickets in a single innings in a Test match is Kumble. It is also the second time that a bowler in the history of cricket did that. India triumphed by 212 runs.

The spell of Kapil Dev made him get 9 wickets in 83 runs when he bowled in 1983 against the West Indies. He was against a batting line which included some of the greats like Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd, Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes in their full bloom. but in an innings defeat India had been the recipient. This is the biggest rout that India ever suffered in a Test.

The below table shows the top 10 innings performed by bowlers in Test matches for India. The above table doesn’t offer any detail regarding when the incident occurred, the level of opposition, the condition of the wicket, and what made one innings newsworthy but not the other that took place in 1959.

All-Time Top 10: Best Bowling Figures for India in Tests (by Innings)

No.	Player	Figures	Overs	Vs	Venue	Year	Bowling Type	Result
1	Anil Kumble	10/74	26.3	Pakistan	Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi	1999	Leg-spin	Won by 212 runs
2	Kapil Dev	9/83	30.3	West Indies	Wankhede Stadium, Ahmedabad	1983	Fast-medium	Lost by an inn.
3	Javagal Srinath	8/86	25	Pakistan	Kolkata	1999	Fast-medium	Won by 46 runs
4	Jasubhai Patel	9/69	35.5	Australia	Green Park, Kanpur	1959	Off-spin	Won by 119 runs
5	Vinoo Mankad	8/52	21	Pakistan	Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi	1952	Left-arm spin	Won by inn. & 70
6	BS Chandrasekhar	8/79	36	England	Bombay	1977	Leg-spin/googly	Won by 100 runs
7	Harbhajan Singh	8/84	30.3	Australia	Chennai	2001	Off-spin	Won by 2 wkts
8	Ravindra Jadeja	7/42	16.4	Australia	Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi	2023	Left-arm spin	Won by 6 wkts
9	Ravichandran Ashwin	7/59	20.5	West Indies	Wankhede, Mumbai	2013	Off-spin	Won by an inn.
10	Jasprit Bumrah	6/27	12.1	West Indies	Sabina Park, Kingston	2019	Fast-medium	Won by 257 runs

4 Things This Table Does Not Tell You

In Kanpur in 1959, Jasubhai Patel took 9 wickets for 69 runs against Australia. He achieved 14 wickets overall by taking 5 additional wickets during the second innings. India won the match by 119 runs. Hardly anyone could identify him without searching through the internet.

It is the fourth best individual match figures for India in Test matches. Against Australia in the second innings, he managed to take 9 wickets when India were facing a difficult situation as they had to win the Test match. Patel went on to complete another brilliant second innings bowling spell taking 5 wickets for just 55 runs. 14 wickets in a Test match, an Indian victory by 119 runs and such a performance is erased from people’s memory now. Patel played just 7 Test matches for India, and this one was his best.

Out of India’s ten highest bowling performances in a single innings, nine have been associated with victories. However, the one case where India has lost despite taking their best-ever bowling figures is Kapil Dev’s 9/83 in the game against the West Indies in 1983. This is the case despite having posted India’s best-ever fast-bowling figures in that match.

Kapil Dev achieved his 9/83 figures in the third test of a six-test series which West Indies won by 3-0. The batting performance of West Indians in that particular series was strong despite the bowling performance of Kapil in both innings. The 1983 test was just after India beat the West Indies in the 1983 World Cup. West Indies toured India in 1983-84 and the tour became famous by the name ‘Revenge Series’. West Indies dominated India across all formats and India even lost despite taking nine wickets.

Of the top ten performances, eight of them have been delivered by spinners. There are only two pace bowlers featured, and these are Kapil Dev and Jasprit Bumrah. This strong preference for spin in relation to India’s best single innings shows how 90 years of tactics in preparing pitches have led to such domination by spin.

Many Test games have been played by India in their own grounds, and this is achievable due to the spin factor. The spin factor is what has ensured that the level of devastation has been achieved in grounds located in cities like Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Kanpur, and other places. Of the ten entries on this list, six of them have been delivered at Indian venues. In addition, there have been two pace performances, namely Kapil Dev’s 9/83 in Ahmedabad and Bumrah’s 6/27 in Kingston, both of which were delivered overseas and on pitches offering some movement.

The quickest one amongst all in this collection is that by Ravindra Jadeja where he grabbed 7 wickets off 42 runs when playing against Australia at Delhi in 2023. The speed with which he delivered this spell was so fast that he bowled 16.4 overs with an economy of 2.52. All other spells listed below him involved 21 overs or more. In comparison, Ravindra Jadeja’s spell ended when all others had barely even started to reach their halfway mark.

Jadeja dismissed 7 Australians in a row from the opposition team consisting of players like Steve Smith, David Warner, Marnus Labuschagne, and Cameron Green in this fast spell. India ended up winning the Test match against Australia with 6 wickets to spare. This economy of 2.52 from this spell is a result of his pinpoint accuracy that makes him the fastest Indian Test spin bowler in Indian Test history. The spell involving the next number of overs bowled is Kumble’s spell, 10/74 from 26.3 overs.

10/74. Anil Kumble. Delhi, 1999. The Second Time in History. Forty-Three Years After the First.

The record for taking ten wickets in an innings is attributed to Jim Laker, who did this for the first time against England during the 1956 match between England and Australia in Old Trafford. He took ten wickets for only 53 runs. No one else even came close to breaking this record for the next 43 years.

Anil Kumble bowled 26.3 overs at Pakistan on 7 February 1999 in the second innings of the Delhi Test. Kumble received the ball with Pakistan 101 no loss. Pakistan were beaten by the time he had completed and were 207 all out. All the 10 wickets came to him. His figures were 10/74. He struck Saqlain Mushtaq the last wicket. Harbhajan Singh who bowled the entire innings on the other end had 0-14 in 14 overs.

The pitch was not that helpful. The openers of Pakistan had already established a century stand. Kumble struck his wickets with spring, stride in the air, and never-ending precision, instead of garbage turn. Earlier on the series, he had a broken jaw, and continued. He rejected the whole Pakistan team in every conceivable way – LBW, bowled, caught – in a streak that was not weak in its performance.

The match was won by India with 212 runs. Kumble took 14 wickets in this match. He is the first and only Indian cricketer to achieve a ten-wicket haul in a single innings in Test cricket after 92 years of its history. No other cricketer could get near this record.

Best Single-Innings Test Figures by an Indian Bowler: Last 5 Years

Year	Best Figures	Bowler	Vs	Venue	Result
2024	6/45	Jasprit Bumrah	England	Visakhapatnam	India won by 106 runs
2023	7/42	Ravindra Jadeja	Australia	Delhi	India won by 6 wkts
2022	7/89	Ravichandran Ashwin	Sri Lanka	Mohali	India won by inn. & 222
2021	6/88	Ravichandran Ashwin	England	Chennai	India won by 317 runs
2020	6/26	Jasprit Bumrah	New Zealand	Wellington	Lost by 10 wickets

All four out of five of the highest-ever performances by an Indian bowler in a single innings in the past five years have seen India win. The only one of the five who did not win his game was Bumrah, whose 6/26 at Wellington in 2020 saw India bowled for 165 and 191. In fact, the trend is consistent with that seen from the all-time list – India’s greatest bowling performances and India’s victories happen to be one and the same thing.

Jadeja and Bumrah have made an appearance on both lists on two occasions each. No other player has done so. However, Ashwin managed to appear on both lists on three occasions. They are considered as the three best bowlers from India during the 21st century. After the retirement of Ashwin in 2024, followed by Jadeja in the subsequent two years, Bumrah will be expected to take charge, sans the spinners who ruled the roost in India’s Test cricket team.

Will 10/74 Ever Be Beaten?

Kumble has a 10/74 who is 27 years old. The only threat that has been made to his record however was when Ajaz Patel took 10 wickets at the cost of 119 against India in the year 2021 in Mumbai. Ajaz took 47.5 overs to get his 10 wickets whereas Kumble had only taken 26.3 overs to get 10 wickets.

It takes an Indian bowler a conducive playing surface, supportive batting opponents, and absolutely no regard for their efforts from the bowlers on the other side to capture ten wickets in one inning. Jadeja and Bumrah are probably the best prospects among those who can represent India’s current bowling force, but Jadeja never records more than 7 wickets in an inning under any conditions, while the fast pace of Bumrah adds to his difficulty.

This is the oldest record going, and it’s 27 years old now. For 43 years, nobody could break it until Kumble came along and surpassed Laker. It’s not only about bowling your way into this feat; you have to have the other bowling side bowl well enough to create pressure but not enough to take any wickets. This has occurred only once in 92 years of India playing Test cricket.

10/74. Delhi, 1999. The record that does not move.