Most wickets taken in home Test matches (male)

Spin bowler Muttiah Muralitharan (Sri Lanka) took 493 of his unrivalled 800 Test wickets in home matches between 29 August 1992 and 22 July 2010.

“Murali” bowled 4,176.5 overs – including 1,087 maidens – in 73 Test matches (134 innings) in Sri Lanka, at an average of 19.56 runs per wicket.

Almost half of Muralitharan’s 800 Test wickets were taken at Sinhalese Sports Club Ground in Colombo (166 wickets in 24 matches), Asgiriya Stadium in Kandy (117 wickets in 16 matches) and Galle International Stadium (111 wickets in 15 matches). Murali holds the top three positions in the list of the most Test wickets on a single ground, ahead of James Anderson’s 103 wickets in 23 matches for England at Lord’s, UK.

Highlights of Murali’s home Test career include 9 for 51 against Zimbabwe in Kandy in January 2002, and eight-wicket hauls against India in Colombo in 2001 and the West Indies in Kandy in 2005. He achieved 45 five-wicket hauls in Sri Lanka, and 15 matches in which he took 10 or more wickets.