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3 Captains With Most Five-Wicket Hauls In Test Matches

Aakash Saini∙ Updated: Dec 8 2024, 9:19 PM

Most five-wicket hauls as captain in Test matches [Source: AP]Most five-wicket hauls as captain in Test matches [Source: AP]

Captaining a team in Test cricket not only demands strategic craftsmanship but also requires self-individual brilliance, inspiring enough to script success stories with your colleagues. Captains, particularly bowling skippers, tend to set themselves apart by making timely breakthroughs with the ball.

A five-wicket haul, usually a bowler’s equivalent to centuries for batters, often sets the standard as a defining moment in Test matches. Here, we take a look at three individual cricketers who have bagged the highest number of five-wicket hauls in Test cricket as captains of their respective teams.

3. Pat Cummins (Australia) – 8

Australian fast bowler Pat Cummins has collected eight of his 13 career five-wicket hauls as the captain of his national team. The latest of his bowling spectacle occurred against a strong Indian batting unit during the Pink-Ball Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test affair at the Adelaide Oval in December 2024, i.e., nearly three years after becoming Australian captain as Tim Paine’s successor.

Overall, as Australian skipper, Cummins has bagged 115 wickets in just 30 Test matches at an impressive bowling average of 24.10. Apart from snagging eight five-fers in the process, the legendary paceman even converted one of them into a match-winning 10-wicket haul, doing so against a Shan Masood-led Pakistan side at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) in December 2023. The speedster picked up five wickets in each Pakistan innings, to bag a near career-best haul of 10-97 in the match.


2. Richie Benaud (Australia) – 9

Late Australian cricketer and commentator Richie Benaud represented his nation in 63 Tests during his playing days. The all-rounder captained Australia in 28 of those matches between the years 1958 and 1963, carting 138 wickets at an average of just 25.78. A cunning leg-spinner by profession, Benaud seems to have flourished the most while shouldering the leadership responsibility, considering he picked up just 110 wickets in the remaining 35 matches of his career.

As captain, Richie Benaud snared nine five-fers, which included one of his career-best hauls of 9-173. Remarkably, the all-rounder bagged two of those five-wicket hauls during Australia’s home Ashes series from 1958-59, where he picked up 31 wickets in five matches at an average of just 18.83. Benaud also led Australia to a 4-0 Ashes triumph in the series to cap a successful summer as captain and as an all-rounder.

1. Imran Khan (Pakistan) – 12

A fearsome fast bowler, an aggressive batter, a legendary all-rounder and a World Cup-winning captain; Imran Khan seems to have accomplished nearly everything during his 21-year journey with Pakistan cricket. In Tests alone, the cricketer bagged 362 wickets in 88 matches and tallied nearly 4,000 runs in 126 innings at an impressive batting average of 37.69.

Khan captain Pakistan 48 times in Tests for a full decade, from 1982 until his retirement year of 1992, collecting 187 wickets in the process at a staggering average of 20.26. The cricketer picked up 12 five-wickets hauls, and converted four of them into 10-wicket match collection, marking a world record in both aspects that remains unbroken even to this date, i.e., more than three decades since his international retirement.