5 bowlers with incredible stats you've probably never heard of
Numbers unfold several stories. Especially in a sport like cricket which is heavily depended on statistics, the stories painted by numbers are always intriguing.
However, sometimes the statistics go unnoticed and the players don't get the appreciation they deserve.
Let us take solace in numbers to relive some of the finest statistical achievements which have faded away with time. Here we focus in the statictics of bowlers, who are highly underrated in the game and are treated as second-grade citizens.
Here are five bowlers who produced some incredible statistics and inked their name in the history of the game.
#1. Jim Laker - 19 wickets in a Test match
Jim Laker was a handy off-spinner who served England for 46 Tests and claimed 193 wickets. His average of 21.24 and strike rate of 62.3 is impressive but what makes Laker immortal in cricket is his incredible bowling spell at Manchester in 1956 against Australia.
The English spinner picked nine wickets in the first innings to rout Australia for a paltry score of 84 and came back once again to haunt the visitors and dismantled the entire Aussie batting line-up. He claimed all ten wickets in the second innings to enable England to win the game by one inning and 170 runs.
He ended the Test with 19 wickets, a record which is still intact and can stand unbroken for a long period. Anil Kumble, India's ace leg-spinner is the only other bowler to take a ten-wicket haul in a Test inning but he claimed only four wickets in the other inning.
Sydney Barnes, another English bowler comes second in the list of most wickets in one Test with his 17 wickets in 1913 against South Africa.