Durban, Oct 11 (IANS) Australia’s fabled fast-bowling quartet of Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon etched their names into the history books during the first Test against South Africa at Kingsmead here.
The fabled bowling unit breached a special 600-wicket milestone with their scalps in the first innings against the Proteas. The four have become the first-ever quartet to complete 600 wickets in Test cricket while playing Test matches together.
Coming into the first Test in Durban, the four bowlers had taken 599 wickets in the 37 matches they played together and breached the 600-wicket mark during Day 2 of the fixture at Kingsmead.
The four bowlers now have over 600 wickets in 38 matches that they have played together. This came after the four combined to take all first eight wickets that fell in South Africa’s innings at the time of writing this piece. Cummins leads the charts among the four as he has 160 wickets in the games he has played with Starc, Hazlewood and Lyon.
Starc is second with 155 scalps in 74 innings, while Hazlewood stands third with 152 wickets in 72 innings. Lyon is a close fourth as he has 140 wickets in 70 innings when he played with the above three bowlers.
They are the first quartet to go past the mark and have a huge gap between the other most prolific quartet of James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali, all of whom have 433 wickets in the 34 Test matches they have played together.
Australian bowlers made inroads in South Africa’s batting line-up on Day 3 of the fixture. Cummins took three wickets, while Hazlewood and Lyon scalped two each, and Starc also took one.
The hosts were in trouble at 197/8 when Hazlewood removed Marco Jansen to send the Proteas in further trouble. Australia had earlier made 390 batting first with Matt Renshaw scoring a masterful hundred.
–IANS
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