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Top 10 Best Spin Bowlers Of All Time

  • Post category:Cricket
  • Reading time:15 mins read
  • Post last modified:February 3, 2023

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We will check out the top 10 best spin bowlers of all time in this post.

Cricket is by far one of the most followed sports around the world. As usual, every sport has players who have been designated a particular role for the game.

Today we will talk about the best spinners the world of cricket has ever seen. To win the game of cricket bowlers play a vital role.

Having a world-class spinner in your squad always makes things easy for the team. The role of bowlers is to make the opposition team suffer while taking quick wickets during the game.

That’s why having spinners always play a tremendous role in deciding the fate of the game. The world has seen some of the greatest spinners ever to grace the game of cricket.

Spinners have always been in the spotlight of the match with their performances. We have combined stats and figures to determine the top 10 best spin bowlers of all time.

So now without a further delay, let’s go ahead and check out the top 10 best spin bowlers of all time.

Top 10 Best Spin Bowlers Of All Time

10 Graeme Swann

Image Credit- Cricket Addictor

Graeme Swann is a former spin bowler who played all three game formats for the England team.

In December 2009, he became the first English spinner to take a total of 50 wickets in a calendar year.

He also topped in back-to-back man-of-the-match awards in the first two Tests against mighty South Africa and climbed to third place in the world rankings for bowlers.

He took 255 wickets in 109 innings with an impressive economy of 2.98. In March 2010, Swann became the first English off-spinner since the great Jim Laker to take 10 wickets in a match.

He achieved this feat in the first Test in Bangladesh. In May, he was called ECB Cricketer of the Year. Swann was also part of the England team in 2011 who claimed the No. 1 ranking in Test cricket.

He also took 104 wickets in 79 ODI matches with an economy of 4.54 and the best bowling figure of 5/28. Swann is number 10 in our list of the top 10 best spin bowlers of all time.

9 Harbhajan Singh

Image Credit- India Tv News

Harbhajan Singh is a former Indian cricketer and one of the specialist off-spin bowlers on the Indian cricket team.

Harbhajan Singh made his Test and One Day International (ODI) debuts in early 1998. Singh is undoubtedly one of the greatest Indian Spinners, who is known for his top-off spin bowling to rip the opponent’s team’s batting lineup. 

He was also part of the World Cup-winning team of the 2011 Cricket World Cup. Singh is Nicknamed ‘The Turbanator’.

Bhajji is very popular for the ‘doosra’ in world cricket. He also became the first bowler to take a hat-trick in test cricket.

Harbhajan took a total of 711 wickets across three formats of the game, out of which 417 came in 103 tests. He is number 9 in our list of the top 10 best spin bowlers of all time.

8 Saqlain Mushtaq

Image Credit- Dafanews India

Saqlain Mushtaq is considered one of the best spin bowlers that Pakistan cricket has ever seen. He is best known for popularizing the “doosra”.

He was the fastest bowler to reach the landmarks of 200 and 250 wickets in ODIs. Saqlain played 49 Test matches and 169 One Day Internationals (ODIs) for Pakistan.

He took a total of 208 Test and 288 ODI wickets during his career and also scored a Test match century against New Zealand in March 2001.

He is surely one of the gems when it comes to spin bowling. Saqlain is number 8 in our list of the top 10 best spin bowlers of all time.

7 Erapalli Prasanna

Erapalli Prasanna is one of the best off-spin bowlers of all time. Prasanna defined the era of India during the 1960s and 1970s with his spin bowling.

He was widely known for his unplayable spin bowling to trick a batsman. He debuted against England in 1962 at the Nehru stadium.

His outstanding career of 16 years is still impossible to be matched again. In 49 Test matches, he took a total of 189 wickets.

He played his last match against Pakistan at Gadaffi cricket stadium. He is number 7 in our list of the top 10 best spin bowlers of all time.

6 Abdul Qadir

Image Credit- Wisden

Abdul Qadir was one of the finest leg-spin bowlers for Pakistan. Qadir is widely considered one of the best leg spinners of the 1970s and 1980s.

Abdul Qadir has surely contributed greatly in the category of spin bowling to the world of cricket. He is one of the most appreciated leg-spin bowlers of all time.

Qadir played in 67 Tests and 104 One Day International (ODI) matches between 1977 and 1993 and captained the Pakistan cricket team in five ODIs.

In Test cricket, his best performance came against England in 1987 when he snatched 30 wickets for 437 runs, in three Test matches at home.

His best bowling figures for an innings were nine wickets for 56 which surprisingly also came against the same team at the Gaddafi Stadium in the same series in 1987.

He played a total of 67 Tests and 104 ODIs in which he reaped 236 wickets in the Test format and 132 wickets in the ODIs.

5 Ravichandran Ashwin

Image Credit- Sky Sports

Ravichandran Ashwin is an Indian international cricketer and one of the finest right-arm off-break spin bowlers of all time.

He is the fastest Indian bowler to reach the 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 350, and 400 wicket mark in Test cricket in terms of the number of innings.

In 2016, he became the third Indian to win the ICC Cricketer of the Year award. He is regarded to be one of the best spin bowlers to ever played the game.

Ashwin is surely one of the highest-ranked spinners in Test cricket. He has won a total of nine Man of the Series awards in Test cricket, which is the highest by any Indian cricketer in history.

Ashwin was also part of the Indian cricket team that won the 2011 Cricket World Cup. Ravi Ashwin has taken a total of 442 test wickets in only 86 matches.

It is safe to say that he will gonna break Anil Kumble’s record of most wickets in test cricket in the upcoming future.

4 Jim Laker

top 10 best spin bowlers of all time
Image Credit- Wisden

Jim Laker is a right-arm off-break bowler, regarded as one of the greatest spin bowlers in cricket history.

In 1956, he achieved a record that is still unequaled by any bowler. He took a total of nineteen wickets in a Test match at Old Trafford Cricket Ground in Manchester, against Australia.

The game is popularly known as the Laker’s match. Jim Laker is surely one of the most amazing spinners the world of cricket has ever seen.

Jim Laker played 46 Test matches in which he took a total of 193 wickets. He is number 4 in our list of the top 10 best spin bowlers of all time.

3 Anil Kumble

top 10 best spin bowlers of all time
Image Credit- Wisden

Anil Kumble is widely considered one of the greatest leg-spin bowlers in Test cricket history. He took 619 wickets in Test cricket and is the fourth-highest wicket-taker of all time.

In 1999 against Pakistan, Kumble banished all ten batsmen in a Test match innings, merging England’s Jim Laker as the second player to reach the feat.

He is surely one of the match winners the world cricket has ever seen. A total of 619 wickets in the test and 337 wickets in ODI, makes him ahead of any Indian bowlers in history. 

His precision and intellect made him a deadly spin bowler against his opponents. Kumble was designated as the Cricketer of the Year in 1993 Indian Cricket, and one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year three years later.

In February 2015, he became the fourth Indian cricketer to be placed in the ICC Hall of Fame.

2 Shane Warne

top 10 best spin bowlers of all time
Image Credit- Sky Sports

Shane Warne was a right-arm leg-spin bowler widely recognized as the sport’s greatest spin bowler of all time. He played 145 Test matches, taking a total of 708 wickets.

Warne is arguably the greatest bowler ever to grace the game of cricket. He completely changed the way spin bowling has to be done.

Shane Warne made his debut for Australia in 1992 against India and since then he never looked back.

Warne revolutionized cricket with his mastery of leg-spin bowling on the ground. He’s bowled the ‘Ball of Century’ in the 1993 Ashes at Manchester to take off Mike Gatting’s off-stump out of the ground.

1 Muttiah Muralitharan

top 10 best spin bowlers of all time
Image Credit- Sky Sports

Muttiah Muralitharan is widely considered the greatest and one of the most successful bowlers to ever play the game of cricket.

He is the only bowler in the history of the game to take 800 Test wickets and 530+ ODI wickets. As of March 2022, he has the most wickets in international cricket than any other bowler.

He holds the record of being number one as a Test bowler for a record period of 1,711 days in the ICC player rankings.

Murali became the highest wicket-taker in Test cricket when he surpassed the previous record held by Shane Warne on 3 December 2007.

He had a test bowling average of 22.72 with an economy rate of 2.47. Muralitharan was rated the greatest Test match bowler by Wisden’s Cricketers’ Almanack in 2002.

In 2017, he became the first Sri Lankan cricketer to be inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.

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Kamran Khan

A geek, who just loves to update sports, gaming, and tech updates from around the world to the other geeks out there. A passionate sports lover, a tech geek from the mind, and a gamer from the heart.

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