Most wickets taken by spin bowlers in a single Test match

In the second match of Sri Lanka’s three-Test series against England at Pallekele International Cricket Stadium in Kandy on 14-18 November 2018, spin bowlers were responsible for 38 of the 40 wickets taken across the four innings. The main protagonists were Dilruwan Perera (4 for 61 and 3 for 96) and Akila Danajaya (2 for 80 and 6 for 115) for Sri Lanka, and Jack Leach (3 for 70 and 5 for 83) and Moeen Ali (2 for 85 and 4 for 72) for England, who wrapped up the win early on day five to claim their first series victory in Sri Lanka since 2001.

The other spin bowlers to take wickets in the match were Malinda Pushpakumara (3 for 89 and 1 for 101), Adil Rashid (3 for 75 and 1 for 52) and Joe Root (1 for 26). The first wicket of the match (Keaton Jennings caught off the bowling of Sri Lankan captain Suranga Lakmal) was the only one taken by a pace/seam bowler. Sri Lanka’s opening batsman Dimuth Karunaratne was run out in their first innings, leaving 38 wickets for the slow bowlers.

In total, just 40 of the match’s 333.2 overs were bowled by seam bowlers, including 16 from Lakmal and 19 from England’s James Anderson.

England smashed a record that had stood since 8 October 1969, when New Zealand defeated hosts India in Nagpur after 37 wickets had fallen to spin bowlers, notably Srinivas Venkataraghavan (3 for 59 and 6 for 74) and Hedley Howarth (4 for 66 and 5 for 34).

England (290 all out and 346 all out) defeated Sri Lanka (336 all out and 243 all out) by 57 runs to lead the three-match series 2-0.