Stats: Highest wicket-takers in ODI cricket in each year starting from 1971 to 2015

Mitchell Starc is the leading ODI wicket taker in 2015

The first ODI cricket match was played between Australia and England on 5th January 1971. To date, 3703 ODI matches have been played and many records have been created and broken in those ODI matches.

We know that cricket is a team game. All the players in the squad have a role to play in the side, even those who don’t make it to the playing eleven. It is the different skillsets of various individual players that combine together to form a team.

The same logic goes for the bowling unit. The different kinds of bowlers in a team gel together to form a bowling attack.

But sometimes an individual bowler is forced to handle the responsibilities of the entire bowling attack. There have been some memorable instances in cricket when an individual, through his great performances, galvanised his team by taking wickets whenever his team needed him to and thereby at the end of the year ended up becoming the highest wicket taker of the year.

Here we have presented a table that contains all bowlers’ details who have been highest wicket takers in respective years in ODI cricket starting from 1971:

Year Player name Country Matches Wickets
1971 Keith Stackpole Australia 1 3
Ray Illingworth England 1 3
Ashley Mallett Australia 1 3
1972 Geoff Arnold England 3 6
1973 Geoff Arnold England 3 5
Bevan Congdon New Zealand 3 5
1974 Chris Old England 4 6
1975 Gary Gilmour Australia 3 13
1976 Andy Roberts West Indies 3 8
1977 John Lever England 4 10
1978 Hasan Jamil Pakistan 4 8
Sarfraz Nawaz Pakistan 6 8
1979 Ian Botham England 14 16
Bob Willis England 12 16
1980 Dennis Lillee Australia 9 23
1981 Greg Chappell Australia 14 25
1982 Dennis Lillee Australia 12 18
Joel Garner West Indies 9 18
1983 Ewan Chatfield New Zealand 25 36
1984 Carl Rackemann Australia 20 31
1985 Joel Garner West Indies 26 35
Michael Holding West Indies 28 35
1986 Kapil Dev India 27 32
1987 John Emburey England 31 43
1988 Curtly Ambrose West Indies 13 28
1989 Curtly Ambrose West Indies 22 33
1990 Waqar Younis Pakistan 19 47
1991 Curtly Ambrose West Indies 18 30
1992 Wasim Akram Pakistan 27 43
1993 Wasim Akram Pakistan 26 45
1994 Shane Warne Australia 29 50
1995 Aaqib Javed Pakistan 18 23
1996 Saqlain Mushtaq Pakistan 33 65
1997 Saqlain Mushtaq Pakistan 36 69
1998 Ajit Agarkar India 30 58
1999 Shane Warne Australia 37 62
2000 Abdul Razzaq Pakistan 38 61
Shaun Pollock South Africa 38 61
2001 Muttiah Muralitharan Sri Lanka 33 56
2002 Shaun Pollock South Africa 38 54
2003 Brett Lee Australia 24 46
Muttiah Muralitharan Sri Lanka 24 46
2004 Irfan Pathan India 28 47
2005 Brett Lee Australia 26 51
2006 Mashrafe Mortaza Bangladesh 27 49
2007 Daniel Vettori New Zealand 31 43
2008 Ajantha Mendis Sri Lanka 18 48
2009 Mitchell Johnson Australia 30 46
2010 Shakib Al Hasan Bangladesh 27 46
2011 Lasith Malinga Sri Lanka 24 48
2012 Lasith Malinga Sri Lanka 32 47
2013 Saeed Ajmal Pakistan 33 62
2014 Mohammed Shami India 16 38
Ajantha Mendis Sri Lanka 17 38
2015 Mitchell Starc Australia 18 41

Here is a table that includes team-wise distribution of top ODI wicket-takers in a calendar year:

Count Team
13 Australia
10 Pakistan
8 England
7 West Indies
6 Sri Lanka
4 India
3 New Zealand
2 South Africa
2 Bangladesh

By observing the first table, we can find that Curtly Ambrose is the bowler who was the highest wicket taker in three different years – 1988, 1989, and 1991 – while there are nine other players who were highest wicket takers for two different years. This list includes Geoff Arnold, Dennis Lillee, Joel Garner, Wasim Akram, Saqlain Mushtaq, Shaun Pollock, Muttiah Muralitharan, Lasith Malinga and Ajantha Mendis.

There are five bowlers in this list who had been the highest wicket takers in two consecutive years – Geoff Arnold, Curtly Ambrose, Wasim Akram, Saqlain Mushtaq and Lasith Malinga.

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Edited by Staff Editor