Bowlers who picked 9 wickets in a Test innings
A team wins a Test match when it is able to take 20 wickets of the opposition. Teams are in dire need of bowlers who have the ability to pick those 20 wickets. Champion teams will always have good bowlers in the side.
On their days, some bowlers pick a lot of wickets. For instance, Jim Laker from England and Anil Kumble went on to pick all the 10 wickets in an innings. Jim Laker did it against Australia and Anil Kumble did it against Pakistan at Feroz Shah Kotla. Some bowlers came close to achieving this feat but fell short by a wicket.
Let us look at the bowlers who picked 9 wickets in an innings and almost came close to the historical feat.
#1 Muttiah Muralitharan
The leading wicket-taker in Test matches went on to take 9 wickets in an innings on two occasions. In 1998 in a Test match against England in London in the second innings, Muralitharan picked 9 wickets but Alex Stewart was run out. In the first innings, he had picked 7 wickets. He ended the match with his best figures of 16/220.
In 2002 against Zimbabwe in the first innings, Muralitharan picked the first 9 wickets and he tried a lot to pick the last one but Vaas took the last one and Muralitharan missed the milestone yet again.
#2 Jim Laker
In the very match in which Jim Laker picked 10 wickets in the second innings against Australia, he picked 9 wickets in the first innings. Only the 3rd wicket was not taken by him in the first innings. He finished the match with a gigantic figure of 19/90. It is still a world record.
#3 GA Lohmann
In 1896, GA Lohman right arm medium fast bowler, playing for England against South Africa in the first match picked 15 wickets. He picked 7 wickets in the first innings and 8 in the second. In the second test match, he improved it further by picking 9 wickets in the first innings. In three consecutive innings, he picked 24 wickets.
#4 Sir Richard Hadlee
One of the best player New Zealand has ever produced, Richard Hadlee in a Test match against Australia in 1985 in Brisbane picked 9 wickets in the first innings. Except for the 9th wicket, he took them all but missed the milestone. In the second innings, he picked 6 wickets only to end the match with the figures of 15/123, which are his best figures in Test matches.