Best bowling figures in a lost Test
Test cricket is tough, especially for the bowlers who have the taxing task of breaking through the mental barriers of the batters. But even after performing at their very best sometimes, they end on the losing side due to a lack of collective team effort. We list the best bowling performances in the traditional form of the game that resulted in a defeat.
Sydney Barnes (England) against Australia – 13/163
One of the pioneers of swing bowling, England’s Sydney Barnes, was considered the bowler of the century by his peers. The England quick had an incredible ability to not only swing the ball but also spin the ball with supreme deception. It took him just a net session to guarantee his spot in the England national team for the 1902 Ashes in Australia. Barnes wasted no time in hitting the ground running as he scalped his first fifer in just his second match, dismissing six Aussie batters in the first innings of the second Ashes Test. In the following innings, he did one better and rattled the Australians by accounting for seven of their batters. He finished with astonishing figures of 13/163 in the match. Unfortunately, his sensational bowling performance went in vain, as England were comprehensively defeated in the match.
Javagal Srinath (India) against Pakistan – 13/132
One of India’s greatest pacers of all time, Javagal Srinath sowed the seeds of out-and-out fast bowling in the country. A lightning-quick bowler in his prime, Srinath added much-needed variations in his bowling in the latter stages of his career and nurtured the young crop of Indian fast bowlers like Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra. Srinath, on his day, was unplayable and the Pakistani batters found it the hard way in the first match of the Asian Test championship in 1999 at the iconic Eden Gardens, where Srinath grabbed a fifer in the first innings to restrict Pakistan to 185, and then returned in the second innings to register mind-boggling figures of 8/86, taking his tally to 13 wickets for the match. However, a batting collapse by the Indian team in the fourth innings meant that Srinath finished on the losing side.
Ajaz Patel (New Zealand) against India – 14/225
New Zealand’s left-arm spinner Ajaz Patel aspired to be a fast bowler and used to bowl the same in his early days, fortunately for him and New Zealand he turned to spin. The left-arm orthodox entered the record books in the second Test against India at the Wankhede in 2021, becoming only the third bowler in history to claim all ten wickets in an innings. Patel finished with 10/119 in the first innings before adding another four scalps to his tally in the second innings to finish with 14 wickets in the match. Unfortunately for him, the record-breaking performance ended in a defeat as the Kiwi batters failed to tackle the Indian bowlers.
