Stats: Highest wicket-takers in ODI cricket in each year starting from 1971 to 2015

Mitchell Starc is the leading ODI wicket taker in 2015

The first ODI cricket match was played between Australia and England on 5th January 1971. To date, 3703 ODI matches have been played and many records have been created and broken in those ODI matches.

We know that cricket is a team game. All the players in the squad have a role to play in the side, even those who don’t make it to the playing eleven. It is the different skillsets of various individual players that combine together to form a team.

The same logic goes for the bowling unit. The different kinds of bowlers in a team gel together to form a bowling attack.

But sometimes an individual bowler is forced to handle the responsibilities of the entire bowling attack. There have been some memorable instances in cricket when an individual, through his great performances, galvanised his team by taking wickets whenever his team needed him to and thereby at the end of the year ended up becoming the highest wicket taker of the year.

Here we have presented a table that contains all bowlers’ details who have been highest wicket takers in respective years in ODI cricket starting from 1971:

Year	Player name	Country	Matches	Wickets
1971	Keith Stackpole	Australia	1	3
	Ray Illingworth	England	1	3
	Ashley Mallett	Australia	1	3
1972	Geoff Arnold	England	3	6
1973	Geoff Arnold	England	3	5
1973	Bevan Congdon	New Zealand	3	5
1974	Chris Old	England	4	6
1975	Gary Gilmour	Australia	3	13
1976	Andy Roberts	West Indies	3	8
1977	John Lever	England	4	10
1978	Hasan Jamil	Pakistan	4	8
1978	Sarfraz Nawaz	Pakistan	6	8
1979	Ian Botham	England	14	16
1979	Bob Willis	England	12	16
1980	Dennis Lillee	Australia	9	23
1981	Greg Chappell	Australia	14	25
1982	Dennis Lillee	Australia	12	18
1982	Joel Garner	West Indies	9	18
1983	Ewan Chatfield	New Zealand	25	36
1984	Carl Rackemann	Australia	20	31
1985	Joel Garner	West Indies	26	35
1985	Michael Holding	West Indies	28	35
1986	Kapil Dev	India	27	32
1987	John Emburey	England	31	43
1988	Curtly Ambrose	West Indies	13	28
1989	Curtly Ambrose	West Indies	22	33
1990	Waqar Younis	Pakistan	19	47
1991	Curtly Ambrose	West Indies	18	30
1992	Wasim Akram	Pakistan	27	43
1993	Wasim Akram	Pakistan	26	45
1994	Shane Warne	Australia	29	50
1995	Aaqib Javed	Pakistan	18	23
1996	Saqlain Mushtaq	Pakistan	33	65
1997	Saqlain Mushtaq	Pakistan	36	69
1998	Ajit Agarkar	India	30	58
1999	Shane Warne	Australia	37	62
2000	Abdul Razzaq	Pakistan	38	61
2000	Shaun Pollock	South Africa	38	61
2001	Muttiah Muralitharan	Sri Lanka	33	56
2002	Shaun Pollock	South Africa	38	54
2003	Brett Lee	Australia	24	46
2003	Muttiah Muralitharan	Sri Lanka	24	46
2004	Irfan Pathan	India	28	47
2005	Brett Lee	Australia	26	51
2006	Mashrafe Mortaza	Bangladesh	27	49
2007	Daniel Vettori	New Zealand	31	43
2008	Ajantha Mendis	Sri Lanka	18	48
2009	Mitchell Johnson	Australia	30	46
2010	Shakib Al Hasan	Bangladesh	27	46
2011	Lasith Malinga	Sri Lanka	24	48
2012	Lasith Malinga	Sri Lanka	32	47
2013	Saeed Ajmal	Pakistan	33	62
2014	Mohammed Shami	India	16	38
2014	Ajantha Mendis	Sri Lanka	17	38
2015	Mitchell Starc	Australia	18	41

Here is a table that includes team-wise distribution of top ODI wicket-takers in a calendar year:

Count	Team
13	Australia
10	Pakistan
8	England
7	West Indies
6	Sri Lanka
4	India
3	New Zealand
2	South Africa
2	Bangladesh

By observing the first table, we can find that Curtly Ambrose is the bowler who was the highest wicket taker in three different years – 1988, 1989, and 1991 – while there are nine other players who were highest wicket takers for two different years. This list includes Geoff Arnold, Dennis Lillee, Joel Garner, Wasim Akram, Saqlain Mushtaq, Shaun Pollock, Muttiah Muralitharan, Lasith Malinga and Ajantha Mendis.

There are five bowlers in this list who had been the highest wicket takers in two consecutive years – Geoff Arnold, Curtly Ambrose, Wasim Akram, Saqlain Mushtaq and Lasith Malinga.