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India's first Test against New Zealand in Kanpur saw a lot of record-breaking feats achieved by the players. While Shreyas Iyer became the first-ever Indian player to score a century and fifty on Test debut, Wriddhiman Saha became the oldest Indian wicket-keeper to score fifty-plus runs. Among the many of such performing players, Ravichandran Ashwin also impressed one and all with his terrific bowling in the game.
While Ashwin contributed with a 38-run knock in the first innings of the game, he returned figures of 3/82 in the following innings. The three wickets saw him staying just 1 short of Harbhajan Singh's tally of 417 Test wickets. Ashwin wasted no time and put a further better effort with the ball in the final innings to eventually surpass Bhajji on the list of highest wicket-takers in Test cricket.
The Indian spinner first claimed the wicket of Will Young towards the end of Day 4's play in Kanpur to equalise Harbhajan's record before returning on the very next day and dismissing Tom Latham to surpass Bhajji's record. Ashwin bowled outside the off stump to Latham giving the southpaw a fair bit of opportunity to play a cut short. Latham did try to play it square of the wicket but the low bounce got better of him and the consequences saw him chopping the ball back on his stumps.
Watch the moment here:
Ashwin third on the list of Indian bowlers with most Test wickets
Ashwin returned figures of 3/30 to end the game with a total of 419 Test wickets to his credit. Meanwhile, he surpassed Harbhajan Singh to take the number three spot from him in the list of Indian bowlers with most Test wickets. The table is topped by Anil Kumble who had ended his career in the format with 619 wickets. Kapil Dev is second on the list with 434 wickets.