Who Has the Most Wickets in Cricket?

Muttiah Muralitharan has the most wickets in international cricket, with 1,347 across all three formats. The total breaks down as 800 in Tests, 534 in one-day internationals and 13 in T20 internationals, and he is the only bowler in history to pass 1,000 international wickets. Figures are as of the 2025 season.

Wickets across all formats reward a rare mix of skill and staying power: a bowler has to be good enough to keep taking them and durable enough to keep playing for the best part of two decades. Muralitharan did both while topping the Test and the ODI lists at the same time. Here is the full all-format leaderboard and the careers behind it.

The most wickets in cricket: all-format leaderboard

The table combines Test, ODI and T20 international wickets for the leading bowlers in history. Where a bowler played no T20 internationals, the column is left blank. Figures are as of the 2025 season.

Bowler	Total	Tests	ODIs	T20Is
Muttiah Muralitharan	1,347	800	534	13
Shane Warne	1,001	708	293	—
James Anderson	991	704	269	18
Anil Kumble	956	619	337	—
Glenn McGrath	949	563	381	5
Wasim Akram	916	414	502	—

Only two bowlers, Muralitharan and Warne, have reached four figures. The gap between first and second is nearly 350 wickets, one of the widest at the top of any major cricket record.

Why Muralitharan’s total stands so far clear

Muralitharan’s lead is built on leading two lists at once. His 800 Test wickets are the most in the game’s oldest format, and his 534 ODI wickets are the most in the one-day game. Almost every other bowler is strong in one format and merely good in another; he was the best in both.

The off-spinner also bowled enormous volumes. He averaged roughly six wickets a Test across a long career and was Sri Lanka’s frontline threat in every format for close to 18 years. That combination of quality and quantity, sustained across two decades, is what put daylight between him and the field.

The fast bowlers on the list

The all-format top order is not only spinners. James Anderson sits third overall with 991, the most by any pace bowler, having taken 704 of them in Tests before retiring in 2024 as the most successful seamer in Test history. Glenn McGrath (949) and Wasim Akram (916) are the other fast bowlers in the group.

Wasim is the outlier in shape: unlike the others, most of his wickets came in one-day cricket, 502 of them, second only to Muralitharan in ODIs. His left-arm swing made him a white-ball force before the format exploded, which is why his split leans so heavily toward the shorter game.

How the all-format list differs from the Test record

Combining formats reshuffles the order below the top. Muralitharan leads the Test-only list too, with 800, but the names beneath him move once ODIs and T20Is are added. Anderson, for instance, climbs above Kumble on the combined list thanks to his 269 one-day wickets, even though Kumble has more Test wickets.

That is the key thing to know when you see different leaderboards quoted: they are measuring different records. For the format that many purists treat as the definitive one, our separate list of the most Test wickets in cricket history ranks bowlers on their red-ball tally alone, where the picture below Muralitharan changes again.

If you would rather test your own memory of cricket’s greats, our roundup of the best cricket games points you to the titles that let you bowl these spells yourself. Muralitharan’s 1,347 is the number to know: no one else has reached 1,000, and with careers now split across formats and leagues, the all-format record looks safe for a long time.