Also, Agarkar needed only 182 days since his debut (vs Australia at Kochi on April fool's day this year) to achieve his feat, which is again a record. The previous record of getting to 50 wickets in the minimum period since debut belonged to Waqar Younis (one year and 26 days).
Agarkar, who became the 13th Indian to take 50 wickets, missed the record for capturing 50 wickets in the least number of balls bowled (upto the end of that particular match) by a whisker, he has so far bowled 1242 balls, Waqar had bowled 1218 balls at the end of the match in which he had completed his fifty wickets.
The following tables show Agarkar's world record performance and his career aggregates against each opposition.
Table (A)
Bowlers taking fifty wickets in least number of matches
Details of Milestone reached No Player Team Mts Balls Age Period vs Venue Date 1 AB Agarkar Ind 23 1242 20/300 0/182 Zim Harare 30 Sep 1998 2 DK Lillee Aus 24 1425 31/152 8/116 Ind Sydney 18 Dec 1980 3 SK Warne Aus 25 1356 25/ 0 1/173 SL Colombo (PS) 13 Sep 1994 4 LS Pascoe Aus 26 1430 31/348 4/239 WI Sydney 27 Jan 1982 5 CEL Ambrose WI 26 1404 26/ 23 1/216 Pak Sharjah 14 Oct 1989 6 BP Patterson WI 26 1359 26/187 2/ 31 Pak Port-of-Spain 20 Mar 1988 7 Waqar Younis Pak 27 1218 20/358 1/ 26 WI Karachi 09 Nov 1990 8 Saqlain Mushtaq Pak 28 1439 19/310 1/ 35 Zim Peshawar 03 Nov 1996 9 IR Bishop WI 28 1429 23/ 18 2/174 Pak Lahore 11 Nov 1990 10 CJ Rackemann Aus 29 1549 28/356 6/136 Eng Manchester 25 May 1989 11 AME Roberts WI 29 1659 30/296 6/167 Pak Melbourne 21 Nov 1981
Notes:
Table (B)
Agarkar's record against each opposition
Vs Mts Balls Mdns Runs Wkt Avge BB 4w 5w R/100 RpO S/R B/W AUS 4 198 1 191 9 21.22 4/ 46 1 0 96.46 5.79 118.46 22.00 SL 3 156 0 129 9 14.33 4/ 53 1 0 82.69 4.96 100.03 17.33 ZIM 5 273 2 234 9 26.00 3/ 42 0 0 85.71 4.88 116.05 30.33 PAK 5 294 2 278 8 34.75 2/ 47 0 0 94.56 5.67 131.31 36.75 NZ 3 156 2 126 7 18.00 4/ 35 1 0 80.77 4.85 103.05 22.29 KEN 2 117 2 67 5 13.40 3/ 31 0 0 57.26 3.05 80.66 23.40 BAN 1 48 1 41 3 13.67 3/ 41 0 0 85.42 5.13 101.42 16.00 Home 8 414 4 340 18 18.89 4/ 46 1 0 82.13 4.93 105.13 23.00 Away 15 828 6 726 32 22.69 4/ 35 2 0 87.68 5.26 113.56 25.88 Tot 23 1242 10 1066 50 21.32 4/ 35 3 0 85.83 5.15 110.67 24.84
(All statistics updated to the end of the Zimbabwe-India series)
Contributed by: Atul Kahate (akahate@hotmail.com)