Against Pakistan on Sunday (January 5), Kagiso Rabada moved past Shane Warne as he moved onto a career tally of 324 Test wickets before turning 30 years old – in the last Test of his twenties.
In the New Year's Test at Newlands in Cape Town, South Africa elected to bat first, and put up an imposing 615 on the back of Ryan Rickelton's career-best 259, centuries from captain Temba Bavuma (106) and wicketkeeper Kyle Verrynne (100), and cameos of 62 and 40 from Marco Jansen and Keshav Maharaj.
By the end of day two, Pakistan had gone in to bat and had lost three wickets for 64 runs. They were already without the services of opener Saim Ayub, who was ruled out of the Test match less than an hour after it started.
Rabada had accounted for two of those wickets, dismissing Shan Masood and Saud Shakeel in near-identical fashion as both batters nicked off to the slip cordon. He added a third on day three, bouncing out Aamer Jamal.
With figures of 3-55 in the first innings, Rabada took his wicket tally in Test cricket to 324. Still aged just 29 years and 225 days, it meant he moved past the late Shane Warne's tally of 322 wickets before turning 30 years old. This is Rabada's final Test in his twenties – South Africa's next on the schedule is the WTC final in June, and Rabada will turn 30 on May 25.
Read more: Temba Bavuma on the verge of best Test captaincy start in 74 years
Muthiah Muralidaran remains the holder of this record with 412 wickets, and looks unlikely to be dislodged any time soon. Rabada is the second South African on the list behind Dale Steyn (332 wickets).
The next best active player on this list is Australia's Nathan Lyon in 17th place, who took 269 wickets in 69 matches before he turned 30, while the next best active player still aged under 30 is another off-spinner – Bangladesh's Mehidy Hasan Miraz, aged 27 years and 72 days, who has 190 wickets in 51 Tests so far.
Rabada's average stands out. Currently at 21.91, he is one of three players to take more than 200 wickets before turning 30 at an average below 30. West Indies' Malcolm Marshall and Australia's Pat Cummins are the other two.
Most Test wickets before turning 30 years old
Player | Team | Matches | Wickets | Average | 5WI | 10WM |
Muthiah Muralidaran | Sri Lanka | 73 | 412 | 23.38 | 33 | 10 |
Harbhajan Singh | India | 83 | 355 | 30.94 | 24 | 5 |
Stuart Broad | England | 94 | 345 | 28.52 | 15 | 2 |
Ian Botham | England | 79 | 343 | 26.37 | 25 | 4 |
Dale Steyn | South Africa | 65 | 332 | 22.65 | 21 | 5 |
Waqar Younis | Pakistan | 74 | 332 | 23.02 | 21 | 5 |
Kapil Dev | India | 95 | 329 | 29.44 | 19 | 2 |
Kagiso Rabada | South Africa | 70* | 324 | 21.91 | 16 | 4 |
Shane Warne | Australia | 72 | 322 | 25.47 | 15 | 4 |
Makhaya Ntini | South Africa | 75 | 308 | 27.48 | 17 | 4 |
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