Most International Wickets in Cricket: Top 20 Wicket-Takers

Most international wickets in cricket across tests, ODIs, and T20Is. Shane Warne is second on 1,001. James Anderson retired third on 991. Among active bowlers, Mitchell Starc leads on 771.

That is the short answer. The full picture is more complicated and more interesting because the all-format list mixes three different jobs into one number.

Top 20 Most International Wickets (All Formats)

Figures compiled from Test, ODI, and T20I records. Data cutoff: September 30, 2026. T20I wickets were counted from the format’s international recognition in 2005.

Rank	Player	Country	Span	Matches	Test	ODI	T20I	Total
1	Muttiah Muralitharan	Sri Lanka	1992–2011	495	800	534	13	1,347
2	Shane Warne	Australia	1992–2007	339	708	293	0	1,001
3	James Anderson	England	2002–2024	401	704	269	18	991
4	Anil Kumble	India	1990–2008	403	619	337	0	956
5	Glenn McGrath	Australia	1993–2007	376	563	381	5	949
6	Wasim Akram	Pakistan	1984–2003	460	414	502	0	916
7	Stuart Broad	England	2006–2023	344	604	178	65	847
8	Shaun Pollock	South Africa	1995–2008	423	421	393	15	829
9	Waqar Younis	Pakistan	1989–2003	349	373	416	0	789
10	Tim Southee	New Zealand	2008–2024	394	391	221	164	776
11	Mitchell Starc*	Australia	2010–	302	435	247	89	771
12	Ravichandran Ashwin	India	2010–2024	287	537	156	72	765
13	Chaminda Vaas	Sri Lanka	1994–2009	439	355	400	6	761
14	Courtney Walsh	West Indies	1984–2001	337	519	227	0	746
15	Brett Lee	Australia	1999–2012	322	310	380	28	718
16	Shakib Al Hasan	Bangladesh	2006–	447	246	323	143	712
17	Harbhajan Singh	India	1998–2016	367	417	269	25	711
18	Daniel Vettori	New Zealand	1997–2015	442	362	305	38	705
19	Dale Steyn	South Africa	2004–2020	351	439	196	64	699
20	Kapil Dev	India	1978–1994	356	434	253	0	687

*Mitchell Starc is the only active bowler in the top 20. His tally of 771 international wickets was reached on August 23, 2026, after a ten-wicket match haul against Bangladesh at Mackay. He sits six wickets behind Tim Southee (776) and 230 behind Muralitharan.

Shakib Al Hasan’s 712 wickets include 246 in Tests, 323 in ODIs, and 143 in T20Is the most T20I wickets of anyone on this list. Daniel Vettori finished his career on 705 international wickets across 442 matches.

Read that table carefully, and two things stand out. Only two men have crossed 1,000. And seven of the top 20 never bowled a single T20I the format didn’t exist for most of their careers.

The Volume Problem With This List

This is a list of opportunities, not a list of greatness.

Muralitharan played 495 international matches. Starc has played 302. A modern fast bowler who features in all three formats with workload management, rest windows, and franchise commitments will be lucky to reach 350.

The eras are not comparable. Muralitharan bowled in an age of packed bilateral ODI schedules and heavy Test calendars. Starc bowls in an age where Cricket Australia rotates him out of series to protect his body. Same sport, different job.

That doesn’t diminish Muralitharan. It means the record is safer than it looks.

The number nobody quotes: Muralitharan also holds the best strike rate among bowlers with 700+ Test wickets. He didn’t just bowl more he took wickets faster than almost anyone who bowled as long.

Most International Wickets by Format

Test Cricket: The Untouchable Record

Muralitharan’s 800 Test wickets is the single most secure bowling record in the sport. Warne is second on 708. Anderson retired on 704. The gap between first and second is 92 wickets.

Nobody active is close. Ashwin retired at 537. Nathan Lyon, the leading active Test wicket-taker, reached 571 Test wickets in August 2026 still 229 behind Muralitharan. For the full test-only picture, the most test wickets list breaks down the 600-club in more detail.

ODI Cricket: A Record That Won’t Move Again

Muralitharan’s 534 ODI wickets leads. Wasim Akram is second on 502, Waqar Younis is third on 416, and Chaminda Vaas is fourth on 400.

The gap between Muralitharan and Akram is 32 wickets. All four top ODI wicket-takers have finished their careers. Bilateral ODI cricket is contracting, and boards treat 50-over series as B-team auditions. The batting equivalent—most runs in ODI—shows the same consolidation pattern.

T20I Cricket: The Format Where Records Actually Move

Rashid Khan leads all T20I wicket-takers with 191. Tim Southee is second on 164. Ish Sodhi is third on 162. No Indian bowler cracks the top five.

The reason is selection policy, not skill. India rest their frontline bowlers for bilateral T20Is. Afghanistan play Rashid in every fixture they schedule. Volume wins T20I records, and volume here is a function of how often selectors pick you. is a useful window into how differently those two boards manage their squads.

Most International Wickets for India

Anil Kumble leads Indian bowlers with 953 wickets for India alone, 956 including matches for a composite Asia XI. Ravichandran Ashwin is second on 765. Harbhajan Singh is third on 711.

Four of India’s top five wicket-takers are spinners. Indian pitches turn. Selectors favor spin. Captains bowl spinners into the ground at home.

Kapil Dev is India’s highest-ranked fast bowler on the all-format international wicket list, with 687 wickets in 356 matches across the 1970s and 80s compiled before fitness science, central contracts, or any serious workload management existed.

Jasprit Bumrah currently sits on 504 international wickets: 234 in Tests, 150 in ODIs,, and 121 in T20Is. He reached the 500-wicket milestone in March 2026 and became only the third cricketer to complete the double of 200 Test wickets, 150 ODI wickets, and 100 T20I wickets. At 32, with his injury history, his future position on the all-format list will depend on his remaining international appearances across all three formats.

For context on how India’s fixture calendar shapes these opportunities, the India vs USA timeline and the KL Rahul profile both show how selection and scheduling decisions feed directly into career totals. is also worth reading for how domestic volume translates or fails to translate—into international caps.

Most International Wickets in Women’s Cricket

Deepti Sharma became the highest wicket-taker in women’s international cricket in June 2026, passing Jhulan Goswami’s 355. She currently sits on 357 and counting.

Unlike the men’s all-time record, this one is genuinely live. Sophie Ecclestone is on 338 and is four years younger. Ellyse Perry is on 336. Katherine Sciver-Brunt on 335. The top five are separated by 22 wickets.

Deepti also became the leading wicket-taker in women’s T20 Internationals in August 2026, reaching 171 T20I wickets during the Women’s Asia Cup. That’s a separate record from the all-format tally and it’s moving fast.

The men’s record is calcified. The women’s record is a race. The crossover between women’s cricket and other women’s team sports is worth watching; the USA women’s hockey programme has followed a similar pattern of investment driving performance depth.

Active International Wicket-Takers

Mitchell Starc is the highest active wicket-taker with 771. Here’s his position against the next milestone:

Player	Age	Formats	Current	Next milestone	Gap
Mitchell Starc	36	Test, ODI, T20I	771	Tim Southee (776)	5
Nathan Lyon	38	Test, ODI	601	650	49
Jasprit Bumrah	32	Test, ODI, T20I	504	550	46
Rashid Khan	28	ODI, T20I	464	500	36

Starc is five wickets from passing Southee and entering the all-time top ten. He passed Ashwin (765) and Vaas (761) in August 2026 with a ten-wicket haul against Bangladesh. Whether he reaches Warne or Anderson depends on how many more multi-format years his body and his board allow.

Muralitharan vs Warne vs Anderson

Three bowlers, three different claims to the record.

Muralitharan: 1,347 wickets. Best strike rate in the 700+ Test club. Bowled in an era of maximum fixture volume. The record holder on every count.

Warne: 1,001 wickets. The only other man past 1,000. Took his wickets in a stronger batting era against better players of spin. Never played a T20I.

Anderson: 991 wickets. The most by any fast bowler. Played 401 matches across 22 years. Retired nine wickets short of Warne.

Shaun Pollock’s 829 wickets for South Africa remains the most underrated entry on this list. For a sense of the competitive environment he bowled in, the Pakistan–South Africa series history is useful background.

Why the All-Format Number Is Getting Less Useful

T20I wickets are piling up fast for players who don’t play Tests. Rashid Khan has 191 T20I wickets more than Muralitharan took in that format by a factor of 14.

Adding that to Test wickets and calling it a career total is increasingly meaningless. A bowler with 500 T20I wickets and 50 Test wickets has had a completely different career to one with 50 T20I wickets and 500 Test wickets. The all-format list treats them as comparable. They aren’t.

The same distortion runs through the Pakistan record; the Pakistan vs Bangladesh timeline shows how format scheduling has shifted even in the last five years.

Sources & Data Methodology

This article uses match-by-match records from the following:

• ICC official records of Test, ODI, and T20I career bowling tables
• ESPNcricinfo Statsguru cross-verified career figures
• Wisden Almanack historical cross-checks for pre-1990 records
• Data cutoff: September 30, 2026

Where sources disagree (most commonly on composite XI appearances such as Asia XI matches), the ICC figure is used and the discrepancy is noted in the text. Live tallies for active players should be verified against the ICC records page before citation.

FAQs About Most International Wickets in Cricket

The Bottom Line

Muralitharan’s 1,347 is safe. Not because nobody is good enough to catch it, but because nobody will ever get the same number of overs in the same number of matches again. The era that produced that tally no longer exists.

The active names on the list — Starc, Lyon, Bumrah, Rashid — are competing on a completely different circuit, with rest windows, franchise commitments and format specialisation that all work against raw volume.

Three things to take from this:

• The all-format record is a durability record, not a skill record.
• The format-specific records are more revealing — and the T20I and women’s lists are the only ones still moving.
• Any article quoting these numbers without a data cutoff and a source is telling you half a story.

That’s the difference between a stat page and an argument. This one is the argument.

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