Stats: Quickest and slowest in terms of number innings and balls to take 200 wickets in T20 cricket

Pakistan's Saeed Ajmal is the quickest to reach 200 T20 wickets, but West Indies’ Kirshmar Santokie is tipped to break his record

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The number of players with 200 or more wickets in T20 cricket has now risen to 12. There were 10 bowlers with 200+ T20 wickets about 10 days ago, but two more joined them in consecutive days. Shahid Afridi took his 200th wicket on September 12 and Sohail Tanvir on September 13, both in the Haier Mobile T-20 Cup in Pakistan.

Afridi took his 200th wicket in his 176th innings in T20s while it was Tanvir’s 194th innings in which he reached the milestone. But there are other bowlers who did it in a lesser number of innings as well as number of deliveries bowled.

The first T20 cricket match was played on June 13, 2003 in England. There were four T20 matches played on that same day which was the beginning of the Twenty20 cup in England. Since then, the frequency of T20 cricket has increased a lot.

The first bowler to take 200 wickets was Dirk Nannes on December 30, 2012 when bowling for Sydney Thunder against Sydney Sixers in KFC Big Bash League. He took 163 innings and 3586 balls to pick up 200 T20 wickets. Since him, 11 others have achieved it including Afridi and Tanvir as mentioned above. The table below lists the 12 bowlers to take 200 wickets in T20s.

200 wickets club in T20s - Chronological order

Bowler	Nationality	Match	Date
Dirk Nannes	Australia	Sydney Thunder v Sydney Sixers	30-Dec-12
Alfonso Thomas	South Africa	Dhaka Gladiators v Chittagong Kings	14-Feb-13
Lasith Malinga	Sri Lanka	Mumbai Indians v Chennai Super Kings	05-May-13
Azhar Mahmood	Pakistan*	Kings XI Punjab v Mumbai Indians	18-May-13
Yasir Arafat	Pakistan	Somerset v Gloucestershire	26-Jul-13
Albie Morkel	South Africa	St Lucia Zouks v Barbados Tridents	08-Aug-13
Saeed Ajmal	Pakistan	Worcestershire v Northamptonshire	30-May-14
Dwayne Bravo	West Indies	Trinidad and Tobago Red Steel v St Lucia Zouks	02-Aug-14
Sunil Narine	West Indies	Guyana Amazon Warriors v St Lucia Zouks	26-Jun-15
Kieron Pollard	West Indies	Barbados Tridents v St Kitts and Nevis Patriots	27-Jun-15
Shahid Afridi	Pakistan	Karachi Blues v Lahore Whites	12-Sep-15
Sohail Tanvir	Pakistan	Rawalpindi v Hyderabad	13-Sep-15

Azhar Mahmood now has the nationality of England.

Among the 12 bowlers, five are Pakistanis, three are West Indians, two South African, a Sri Lankan and an Australian.

Most wickets in T20s by a Bangladeshi is 184 by Shakib al Hasan, by an Englishman is 142 by Graham Napier, by an Indian is 175 by Amit Mishra, by a New Zealander is 141 by Jeetan Patel and by a Zimbabwean is 75 by Elton Chigumbura.

Number of innings to take 200 T20 wickets

The quickest to take 200 wickets in T20 cricket in terms of innings bowled in is Saeed Ajmal, in just 138 innings. The next best is 145 by Lasith Malinga. Kieron Pollard (219) and Albie Morkel (213) bowled in more than 200 innings to pick up 200 T20 wickets. The table below has the details of all the 12 bowlers.

Bowler	Inns
Saeed Ajmal	138
Lasith Malinga	145
Sunil Narine	151
Yasir Arafat	156
Alfonso Thomas	161
Dirk Nannes	163
Shahid Afridi	176
Azhar Mahmood	177
Dwayne Bravo	191
Sohail Tanvir	194
Albie Morkel	213
Kieron Pollard	219

Numbers of balls to take 200 T20 wickets

Saeed Ajmal is also the quickest in terms of number of balls delivered to take 200 T20 wickets. He took his 200th wicket with the 3110th ball of his T20 career. No bowler has done that within 3000 balls. Sohail Tanvir (4113) took more than 4000 balls to take his 200th T20 wicket.

Bowler	Balls
Saeed Ajmal	3110
Yasir Arafat	3183
Lasith Malinga	3217
Kieron Pollard	3447
Alfonso Thomas	3462
Sunil Narine	3513
Dirk Nannes	3586
Dwayne Bravo	3686
Azhar Mahmood	3694
Shahid Afridi	3817-3839*
Albie Morkel	3999
Sohail Tanvir	4113

Kieron Pollard took the most number of innings to get to the milestone but in terms of deliveries bowled he comes fourth.

In case of Shahid Afridi, the ball by ball details are not known for the match in which he took his 200th wicket so the range is mentioned. He had bowled 3816 balls before that match and bowled four overs in the match to pick up two wickets. His first wicket was his 200th of his career. So it is obvious that number of balls should lie between 3817 and 3839.

Time taken to scalp 200 T20 wickets

Bowler	200 T20 wkts	T20 debut	Time from debut
Sunil Narine	26-Jun-15	19-Jan-11	4 years, 5 months, 7 days
Dirk Nannes	30-Dec-12	31-Dec-07	4 years, 11 months, 29 days
Yasir Arafat	26-Jul-13	24-Feb-06	7 years, 5 months, 2 days
Dwayne Bravo	02-Aug-14	16-Feb-06	8 years, 5 months, 17 days
Lasith Malinga	05-May-13	17-Aug-04	8 years, 8 months, 18 days
Alfonso Thomas	14-Feb-13	08-Apr-04	8 years, 10 months, 6 days
Kieron Pollard	27-Jun-15	25-Jul-06	8 years, 11 months, 2 days
Saeed Ajmal	30-May-14	26-Apr-05	9 years, 1 months, 4 days
Albie Morkel	08-Aug-13	08-Apr-04	9 years, 4 months, 0 days
Azhar Mahmood	18-May-13	13-Jun-03	9 years, 11 months, 5 days
Sohail Tanvir	13-Sep-15	25-Apr-05	10 years, 4 months, 19 days
Shahid Afridi	12-Sep-15	02-Jul-04	11 years, 2 months, 10 days

Sunil Narine and Dirk Nannes are the only ones to make it in within five years.

Dirk Nannes completed 200 T20 wickets just one day before the fifth anniversary of his T20 career.

Albie Morkel and Alfonso Thomas made their T20 debuts in the same match for the same team (Lions) which was just the second T20 match in South Africa.

Azhar Mahmood made his debut on the first day when T20 cricket was played – July 13, 2003. As said in the third paragraph, there were four matches played on that day. He played for Surrey against Middlesex.

Who is close to breaking Saeed Ajmal’s record of quickest to 200 T20 wickets in terms of innings and balls?

Kirshmar Santokie has 134 wickets in 77 innings and 1727 balls. He has the best strike rate among bowlers with more than 100 wickets. If he continues this form he should pick up his 200th wicket in 115th innings and in his 2560th ball. If his rate decreases slightly, still he would end up passing Saeed Ajmal.