5 Best Bowling Figures Of The Ashes

For an avid follower of Test cricket, Ashes is supposed to be one of the thrilling contests that is played between Australia and England.

If one opens the archives of this blockbuster series then they will discover collections of historic moments that were glorious for the respective teams and their fans.

Australia are the current holders of Ashes after they drew 2-2 in 2019 in England to retain the urn. Australia had blanked England 4-0 in the 2017/18 series at home.

England pacer Jofra Archer made his Test debut in the 2019 Ashes and made it a remarkable one by claiming 22 wickets from four games. Twice in the series he picked six wickets in an innings with 6/45 in Leeds followed by 6/62 in the final match in London.

As Ashes is the oldest rivalry in the cricket world, the modern day players will have to struggle a lot to enter in the record books.

Let us look at the five best bowling figures in an innings of the historic Ashes.

5 Best Bowling Figures of Ashes

5) Frank Laver: 8/31 (Manchester, 1909)

Australia were bowled out for 147 in the first innings after both Sydney Barnes (5/56) and Colin Blythe (5/63) picked a five-for each in the fourth Test match in Manchester.

Laver stood up for the visitors, barring both the England openers, the medium-pacer scalped eight wickets to fold up their opponents’ innings on 119.

Laver played 15 Test matches for Australia and picked a total of 37 wickets at an average of 26.05.

4) Stuart Broad: 8/15 (Nottingham, 2015)

Broad bowled his career’s best spell in Ashes against Australia in the fourth Test to bundle up Australia’s innings at 60. Broad dismissed the likes of Steve Smith, Shaun Marsh and Michael Clarke.

Broad could just add one more wicket to his tally in the second innings but that was the key wicket of Smith. Broad ended his match figures of 9/51 as England won by an innings and 78 runs to complete the series win in Nottingham.

3) Arthur Mailey: 9/121 (Melbourne, 1921)

The Australian leg-breaker picked 4/115 in the first innings at the MCG to bowl out England for 284.

Mailey added another nine wickets to his tally in the game as Australia won by eight wickets and went on to whitewash England 5-0 in that series.

Mailey ended up as the most wicket-taker bowler with 36 wickets from eight innings.

2)James Laker: 9/37 (Manchester, 1956)

Former England off-spinner Jim Laker had produced one of the best bowling figures in a Test match.

Riding on hundreds by opener Peter Richardson (104) and Colin Cowdrey (113), England posted a good score of 458.

Laker did the rest to win them the game as he rattled through the Australian batting line-up to claim nine wickets with Tony Lock getting one wicket.

If you think Laker missed the landmark of picking a 10-wicket haul in an innings then please jump to the next page.

1) James Laker: 10/53 (Manchester, 1956)

So in the very next innings, Laker does the job and achieved the big milestone from where he left it in the first innings.

Laker became the first bowler in the history of cricket to bag all 10 wickets in an innings as England won by an innings and 170 runs.

England won the series 2-1 as Laker accounted for a total of 46 wickets from 10 innings.

Also Read: 5 Highest Individual Scores In Ashes