Skip to content
Insporta Book
en
EnglishРусскийDeutschEspañolEestiSuomiItalianoFrançaisPolski日本語한국어中文
FootballCricketFutsalTriathlonTennisGolfFigure SkatingBasketballMethodologyWhy it worksTake a test

Cricket · Level 7: Upper-Advanced · Sub-level 7.3

The Great Spinners, All-Rounders and Keepers

5 tests · 50 facts · updated 12 October 2026 · markdown

Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan and the race past 700 and to 800 Test wickets; the "Ball of the Century" to Mike Gatting in 1993; Anil Kumble's 10 for 74 at Delhi in 1999 and Jim Laker's 19 for 90 at Old Trafford in 1956; the great all-rounders — Garry Sobers, and the 1980s quartet of Imran Khan, Kapil Dev, Ian Botham and Richard Hadlee measured against each other, plus Jacques Kallis and Ben Stokes; and the wicketkeeping standard set by Adam Gilchrist, Ian Healy, MS Dhoni and Mark Boucher, with the Test and one-day dismissal records.

Each test below is ten questions on Insporta. The list under a test is what the questions check: one fact per question, with the source it was written from. Read it before the test, or come back from a wrong answer.

Test 1Warne and MuralitharanTake a test

  1. Warne's opening ball of the series pitched a foot outside Mike Gatting's leg stump and turned back to clip the top of off. Gatting stood rooted, and the delivery entered cricket folklore.

    Source: Wisden · recall

  2. Warne finished on 708 at 25.41, the first to reach 700. Muttiah Muralitharan passed him within the year and went on to 800.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

  3. Muralitharan's wrist position on the off break and doosra drew years of testing. Warne's leg break came from an orthodox, visibly straight arm, so his action was never seriously questioned.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

  4. Needing one wicket for 800 in his farewell Test at Galle in 2010, Muralitharan had Pragyan Ojha caught by Mahela Jayawardene off the last ball he bowled.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

  5. Warne took the record in October 2004 while Muralitharan was out with a shoulder injury and kept it until he retired on 708 in January 2007; Muralitharan went past that figure at Kandy in December 2007 and finished on 800.

    Source: Wisden · applied

  6. Warne played several Tests at Lord's but his best there was four in an innings, so his name is absent from the ground's bowling honours board.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

  7. Warne took 195 wickets against England, more than any bowler in Ashes history, from his 1993 debut until his retirement in 2007.

    Source: Wisden · applied

  8. Muralitharan took 534 ODI wickets, the most in the format, with Wasim Akram next on 502.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

  9. Hair called Muralitharan for throwing seven times from the bowler's end that day. Years of biomechanical testing followed, and cricket set a common 15-degree tolerance for arm flexion.

    Source: Wisden · applied

  10. Warne scored 3,154 Test runs with a top score of 99, out caught at Perth against New Zealand in 2001. No one else has made so many Test runs without a hundred.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Test 2Famous spells — Kumble's ten, Laker's nineteenTake a test

  1. Kumble took 10 for 74 against Pakistan's second innings, the first since Jim Laker in 1956 to take all ten in a Test innings. India won by 212 runs.

    Source: Wisden · applied

  2. Laker took 9 for 37 and 10 for 53 in the match; his spin partner Tony Lock managed 1 for 106. No bowler before or since has taken more than 17 in a Test.

    Source: Wisden · recall

  3. With Kumble on nine, Srinath aimed well outside off so as not to take the last wicket himself. Kumble then had Wasim Akram caught by VVS Laxman for the ten.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

  4. Patel, born in Mumbai and raised in New Zealand, took 10 for 119 against India at the Wankhede Stadium, joining Laker and Kumble.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

  5. Lock was a fine spinner in his own right, taking 1 for 106 in the match, yet Laker took everything else. The contrast is a large part of why the feat is so celebrated.

    Source: Wisden · applied

  6. Barnes took 17 for 159 against South Africa at Johannesburg and finished that four-Test series with 49 wickets, a mark that still stands as the most in any Test series.

    Source: Wisden · recall

  7. In 2002 at Antigua, Kumble batted and then bowled 14 overs with a fractured jaw, taking the wicket of Lara before going to hospital.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

  8. Laker's 46 wickets in the 1956 Ashes at 9.60 apiece was an Ashes series record, and the Old Trafford Test alone gave him 19 of them.

    Source: Wisden · recall

  9. Hirwani took 8 for 61 and 8 for 75 against West Indies at Chennai in January 1988, 16 for 136 on debut, still a record for a debutant.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

  10. Verity took 10 for 10 for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Headingley in 1932, the cheapest all-ten in first-class history.

    Source: Wisden · recall

Test 3The 1980s all-rounder quartetTake a test

  1. Imran, Kapil, Botham and Hadlee were front-line all-rounders in the same era, and their rivalry was a constant theme of 1980s cricket coverage.

    Source: Wisden · recall

  2. Botham was the first to 3,000 runs and 300 wickets in Tests, reaching it against West Indies in 1984 and in fewer Tests than anyone who followed.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

  3. Hadlee took 9 for 52 and 15 for 123 in the match as New Zealand won at the Gabba and went on to take the series, a landmark result for the country.

    Source: Wisden · applied

  4. Hadlee passed 400 Test wickets against India at Christchurch in 1990, the first to do so, and was knighted that year while still playing.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

  5. Kapil played 131 consecutive Tests, never omitted and never sidelined by injury, an extraordinary record for a fast bowler.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

  6. A BBC strike meant Kapil's 175 not out from 138 balls at Tunbridge Wells, rescuing India from 17 for 5, went unrecorded on television.

    Source: Wisden · recall

  7. Kapil passed Hadlee's 431 in February 1994 at Ahmedabad, dismissing Hashan Tillakaratne, and finished on 434, the record until Walsh went by in 2000.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

  8. Imran averaged over 50 with the bat as captain, batting at five or six, and finished with a Test average of 37.69 that would have been far lower without those years.

    Source: Wisden · recall

  9. Following on 227 behind, England were saved by Botham's 149 not out; Bob Willis then took 8 for 43 to complete one of the game's most famous wins.

    Source: Wisden · applied

  10. With Australia needing 46 with five wickets left, Botham took 5 for 1 in 28 balls to win the Edgbaston Test, a fortnight after his Headingley hundred.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Test 4Sobers, Kallis, Stokes and the all-round standardTake a test

  1. Sobers's 365 not out in Kingston was the highest individual Test score until Brian Lara made 375 in 1994.

    Source: Wisden · recall

  2. Sobers hit Malcolm Nash for 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 at St Helen's, the first instance in first-class cricket. Nash always maintained he had been bowling to take a wicket.

    Source: Wisden · applied

  3. Sobers bowled left-arm orthodox spin, left-arm wrist spin and left-arm fast-medium, choosing between them by conditions, and took 235 Test wickets.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

  4. Kallis made 13,289 Test runs and took 292 Test wickets, the only man past 10,000 and 250 in the format, and he did the same double in ODIs.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

  5. Kallis made 115 against India at Durban in his final Test, one of 45 Test centuries, a tally bettered only by Sachin Tendulkar.

    Source: Wisden · applied

  6. England were 286 for 9 chasing 359; Stokes made 135 not out and Jack Leach 1 as the last pair added 76 to win by one wicket and keep the Ashes alive.

    Source: Wisden · recall

  7. New Zealand and England tied the final and then the super over. England took the trophy for scoring more boundaries in the match, a rule since changed.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

  8. Stokes reached 250 in 196 balls at Newlands, the fastest in Tests, in a stand of 399 with Jonny Bairstow.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

  9. Needing 19 off the final over, Carlos Brathwaite hit Stokes for four sixes to win West Indies the 2016 World T20. Stokes redeemed the memory in 2019.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

  10. Sobers averaged 57.78 with the bat in Tests, higher than Kallis at 55.37 or any of the 1980s quartet, while also taking 235 wickets.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

Test 5The wicketkeeping greats and the dismissal recordsTake a test

  1. Boucher made 555 dismissals, 532 catches and 23 stumpings, in 147 Tests. His career ended in 2012 when a bail flew into his eye during a tour match in England.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

  2. Gilchrist scored 5,570 Test runs at 47.60 and a strike rate of 81.95, with 17 hundreds, turning the gloves-and-runs role into a match-winning position.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

  3. Gilchrist's 57-ball century at the WACA was the second-fastest in Tests at the time, made in an innings of 102 not out as Australia pushed for a declaration.

    Source: Wisden · applied

  4. Gilchrist said the squash ball stopped the handle slipping in his grip. His 149 set up Australia's third straight World Cup.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

  5. Healy's reading of Warne's leg-spin produced dozens of stumpings and catches, and the pairing became one of the most familiar dismissals in Test cricket.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · recall

  6. Marsh set the record at 355, Healy passed it and finished on 395, and Gilchrist then Boucher went by after that.

    Source: Wisden · recall

  7. Dhoni has made 195 international stumpings, far more than any other keeper, whipping off the bails in a fraction of a second off the spinners.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

  8. Russell held ten catches and made one stumping in the 1995 Johannesburg Test, best remembered for Atherton's 185 not out to earn a draw.

    Source: Wisden · recall

  9. Sangakkara made 482 ODI dismissals, the most by any keeper, over a long career in which he often kept wicket and batted at number three.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

  10. A bail struck Boucher in the eye at Taunton in 2012 as a batter was bowled. He never played international cricket again, retiring at once on 555 Test dismissals.

    Source: ESPNcricinfo · applied

Sources

ESPNcricinfo's records and Statsguru for averages, aggregates, milestones and match scorecards; the Wisden Almanack for historical standing and context; ICC and board material for records held under their competitions. Level 7 covers datable, named, record-bearing facts, so every keyed answer is verified against these sources. Questions are authored from them, not reproduced from them.

  • ESPNcricinfo28
  • Wisden22