Ravichandran Ashwin must be high on confidence after he became the fastest bowler to take 300 Test wickets in Nagpur. And now when he is all set to bamboozle the Sri Lankan batsmen yet again in Delhi, he also has a chance to break a couple of more records.
In the previous game, he broke Australia’s legendary speedster Dennis Lillee’s record of taking 300 Test wickets in 56 matches. Ashwin reached this feat in just the 54th game of his career and thereby lead the list. Maintaining his consistency of picking wickets, he has been inching towards being one of the greatest Indian spinners.
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Apart from claiming 300 wickets in his career so far, this is for the third time in a trot that Ashwin has picked 50 wickets in a calendar year. In 2015, he picked 62 wickets, in 2016 he had 72 and in 2017, he currently has 52 wickets in his kitty.
The count this year may be low than previous year’s but he just 3 wickets away from being the highest wicket taker in 2017. With one more Test match to go, Ashwin has the capability to pick 3 or more wickets on the Delhi track to top the list and surpass South African speedster Kagiso Rabada.
Here’s the list of highest wicket-takers in 2017:
| Sl No | Player | Matches | Wickets |
| 1 | Kagiso Rabada | 10 | 54 |
| 2 | R Ashwin | 10 | 52 |
| 3 | Rangana Herath | 11 | 52 |
| 4 | Natan Lyon | 8 | 51 |
| 5 | Ravindra Jadeja | 9 | 49 |
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Another bowling record which is on the card for this Chennai lad is of becoming the 4th-highest Indian wicket-taker, surpassing Zaheer Khan. Zak retired from international cricket long ago and had taken 311 wickets in his career. Hence it’s a fine chance for Ashwin to beat Zaheer as he has just played 54 matches and has 300 wickets.
Apart from Zaheer and Ashwin, the top three leading Indian wicket-takers in Tests are:
| Sl No | Player | Matches | Wickets |
| 1 | Anil Kumble | 132 | 619 |
| 2 | Kapil Dev | 131 | 434 |
| 3 | Harbhajan Singh | 103 | 417 |
| 4 | Zaheer Khan | 94 | 311 |
| 5 | R Ashwin | 54 | 300 |
The third and the final Test will commence on December 2 at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium in Delhi. This will the last game for Virat Kohli in this season as he has been rested for the limited over games against the Lankans. In his absence, the leadership has been assigned to Rohit Sharma.
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