India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin added yet another feather to his cap on the second day of the third Test match against England. He completed 500 wickets in Test cricket in the first innings when he picked his first wicket becoming only the second Indian cricketer to do so in the format. Overall, Ashwin is ninth bowler to breach the 500-wicket mark doing it in his 98th Test match.
Interestingly, the 37-year-old is also the second fastest to the milestone only behind Sri Lanka spinner Muttiah Muralitharan who eventually ended with 800 wickets during his illustrious Test career. The latter completed 500 scalps in Tests in just 87 Tests while earlier, the second fastest in this aspect was Kumble himself having done it in 105 Test matches. The other bowlers to breach the rare landmark in the longest form of the game are - Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Nathan Lyon, Courtney Walsh, James Anderson and Stuart Broad.
Before the start of the innings, Ashwin needed only one wickets and was coming into this innings after remaining stranded at 499 scalps in Vizag. However, the man didn't take much time to strike in the first innings in Rajkot sending back Zak Crawley in the final session on the second day.
Bowlers to complete 500 wickets in Test cricket
| Players | Tests taken to complete 500 wickets |
| Courtney Walsh (West Indies) | 129 |
| Shane Warne (Australia) | 108 |
| Muttiah Muralitharan (Sri Lanka) | 87 |
| Glenn McGrath (Australia) | 110 |
| Anil Kumble (India) | 105 |
| James Anderson (England) | 129 |
| Stuart Broad (England) | 140 |
| Nathan Lyon (Australia) | 123 |
| Ravichandran Ashwin (India) | 98 |
As far as the match is concerned, India posted 445 runs in the first innings thanks to centuries from Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja while debutant Sarfaraz Khan smashed 62 runs off 66 balls. Another debutant Dhruv Jurel also impressed scoring 46 runs as India lost their five wickets for 119 runs on the second day.
