Cricket is a team sport wherein the eleven players constituting the team are either batters, bowlers, or all-rounders. Batters specialize in scoring runs, bowlers specialise in dismissing the batters and restricting the flow of runs. All-rounders can perform both the tasks. Batters score runs (cricket equivalent of points) through various means and bowlers, with the help of other team members who don the role of fielding try to restrict the scoring of the batting side. The match is won by the team who has scored more runs.
When a bowler dismisses a batter out, he or she is said to claim a wicket. If ten wickets of the batting side falls (in other words, ten batters are deemed out), then the innings of the batting side comes to a close. Usually, a cricket side has five specialist bowlers who contribute towards wicket-taking. If a single bowler claims all ten wickets in an innings, then he or she earns a ten-wicket haul. Should a bowler pick ten wickets across both innings in a test match, then that too counts as a ten-wicket haul.
A ten-wicket haul in a single innings is a bowler’s counterpart for achieving a triple century, and a ten-wicket haul across two innings can be thought of as a double ton. It is an extremely uphill task to achieve in limited overs cricket. This is mainly because of the restriction on the number of overs that bowlers can bowl in these formats. In One Day Internationals, bowlers cannot bowl more than 10 overs whereas in T20s the restriction is further reduced to four overs.
In test cricket on the other hand, there are two innings for the bowling side and no limitation on the number of overs that they can bowl. As a result, Muttiah Muralitharan, who holds the record for most test wickets in cricket (800) picked up a record 22 ten-wicket hauls. However, the Sri Lankan never managed to pick all ten wickets in a single innings. This has only been achieved three times and the bowlers were Jim Laker, Anil Kumble, and Ajaz Patel.
In T20 Internationals, Syazrul Idrus of Malaysia’s tally of seven wickets against China in 2023 is the best as of 2025. Chaminda Vaas of Sri Lanka holds the record of picking up most wickets in an innings in One Day Internationals. He took 8 wickets against Zimbabwe in 2001 in a spell wherein he still has two overs left to bowl.
