Marco Jansen’s 6-48 at Guwahati is one of the greatest performances by a touring fast bowler in a Test match in India.
The rejects
In 1958/59, Wes Hall took 11-126 at Kanpur and Roy Gilchrist 9-73 in Calcutta, but these came at a time when Indian batters could seldom handle serious pace. Things had not changed much when Alan Davidson got 12-124 the following season, and anyway, he switched to spin for some of his wickets.
In 1976/77, John Lever stunned India with 10-70 at Delhi, but it was marred by accusations of ball-tampering. Geoff Dymock’s 12-166 at Kanpur was a fine performance, but it is remembered more for the oddity of him dismissing all 11 Indian batters.
In 1983/84, Malcolm Marshall blew India away at Calcutta, but given the competition, we have kept it to one spell per bowler per series. At Delhi in 1987/88, Patrick Patterson’s 5-24 shot out India for 75, but he was assisted by the conditions (as were India) that eased out after the first day. Richard Hadlee took 10 wickets in New Zealand’s famous win at Bombay a season later, but he was probably the second-best in that triumph to John Bracewell.
After being hammered by Mohammad Azharuddin in the first innings, debutant Lance Klusener took 8-64 in the second – but that came while defending 467. Tim Southee’s 7-64 at Bengaluru in 2012/13 triggered a collapse and got New Zealand a lead, while his eight wickets at Kanpur in 2021/22 kept his side in the race. He simply lost out to the ten entries on the list. Matt Henry was one of the architects behind New Zealand’s win at Bengaluru in 2024/25, but he was not the best seamer for his team in that Test.
The 10 best spells by touring fast bowlers in India
10. Neil Foster, 6-104 and 5-59, Madras 1984/85
With the series level 1-1, the teams moved to Chepauk, a venue with a reputation for assisting seamers back then. Neil Foster, who had not played in the series until then, removed Sunil Gavaskar and Dilip Vengsarkar with some excellent swing bowling with the new ball, returned after lunch to take out Mohinder Amarnath and Ravi Shastri, and cleaned up the tail. Then, after Graeme Fowler and Mike Gatting both hit double tons, Foster got Gavaskar and Vengsarkar with the new ball again. England won by nine wickets and went on to claim their last series in India until 2012/13.
9. Will O’Rourke, 4-22 and 3-92, Bengaluru 2024
Rohit Sharma later admitted that his decision to bat first at Bengaluru had been wrong. O’Rourke came on first-change in the ninth over, and had Virat Kohli caught at leg gully. After a rain break, Tom Blundell dropped Rishabh Pant (who would score 20 of India’s 46) off O’Rourke, but it did not matter: he soon got Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul. He was not done, though: India were going strong at 433-4 in the second innings when O’Rourke took out Pant, Rahul, and Ravindra Jadeja to seal the fate of the Test match in India’s horror home season.
8. Andy Roberts, 7-64 and 5-57, Madras 1974/75
If you know an Indian cricket fan who remembers the mid-1970s, chances are that they cannot stop talking about Roberts at Madras even half a century later. In his brother-in-law Gavaskar’s absence, only Gundappa Viswanath (his 97 attained iconic status) resisted to any extent in that timeless duel as Roberts shot out India for 190. He used the bouncer brilliantly (and got Ashok Mankad with famous faster bouncer), but was just as devastating while pitching up. The five wickets in the second innings are less talked about.
7. Marco Jansen, 6-48, Guwahati 2025/26
Having warmed up with a blistering 93, Jansen did not strike with the new ball. Then, making use of his height on either side of lunch on the third day, he tore the heart out of the Indian batting line-up with an incredible display of short-pitched bowling. The snorters that got Nitish Kumar Reddy and Jadeja were the highlights of his spell, but no less was the one that grew on Dhruv Jurel and forced him to top-edge a pull.
6. Shoaib Akhtar, 4-71 and 4-47, Calcutta 1998/99
The first ever Test in the Asian Test Championship boasted of a marathon duel between Javagal Srinath and Saeed Anwar. However, ask the fans and they will probably be unanimous on their core memories from that Test: Shoaib clean bowling Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar with consecutive deliveries (in his candid autobiography, he rates Dravid’s as the better ball). What is usually forgotten that Shoaib also got VVS Laxman in the first innings and Dravid again, and helped Pakistan clean up the tail in the second innings to enforce the win.
5. Jason Gillespie, 5-56 and 4-24, Nagpur 2004/05
It was Gillespie’s nine-wicket haul at Nagpur that helped Australia go 2-0 up and completed the conquest of their Final Frontier. After the visitors posted 398, Gillespie conceded four fours to Virender Sehwag in his first over, but soon found his rhythm. He produced a peach of an off-cutter to get Tendulkar en route to his five-for. On a pitch that assisted him, Gillespie (and Glenn McGrath) bowled long spells in both innings. In the second, Gillespie ran through the defence of Aakash Chopra and bowled Dravid off the inside edge.
4. Dale Steyn, 7-51 and 3-57, Nagpur 2009/10
The conditions encouraged batting, as was evident by South Africa’s recovery from 6-2 to 558-6. Yet, so devastating was Steyn that no one can be blamed for thinking otherwise. Steyn had taken out M Vijay (shouldered arms and was bowled after Steyn beat him consistently with the out-swinger) and Tendulkar (squared up and edged a ball that moved away late), but India seemed well placed at 221-4. Then, just after tea on the third day, Steyn took five wickets (two bowled, two lbw) for three runs in 22 balls in an astonishing display of fast reverse-swing. The Indians had no answer to his sorcery that day.
3. Malcolm Marshall, 4-19 and 4-47, Kanpur 1983/84
With Roberts on the decline ahead of the 1983/84 tour, Clive Lloyd asked his pacemen who should share the new ball. “Give it to Malcolm,” suggested Michael Holding, one of the default choices. “He’s the fastest now.” Now, having hit 92 in the first innings, Marshall unleashed a spell from hell on the Indians. He trapped Gavaskar lbw with the second ball, and had Amarnath and Anshuman Gaekwad edging with balls that came way too quickly, and hit off-stump to bowl Vengsarkar to leave India reeling at 19-4. None of this, however, got as much press (“Marshall Law at Kanpur,” screamed the headlines) as the ball with which he knocked the bat out of Gavaskar’s hand in the second innings and lobbed to leg gully. India sank without a trace.
2. Fazal Mahmood, 5-52 and 7-42, Lucknow 1952/53
Pakistan had lost their first ever Test, at Delhi, by an innings. In Wounded Tigers, Peter O’Bourne quotes from Fazal’s Urdu autobiography: when the local spectators taunted the Pakistan team after the defeat, he had responded with “If I do not avenge my defeat at Lucknow then my name is not Fazal Mahmood.” At Lucknow, Pakistan were greeted by a jute-matting wicket (different from the coir-matting which their bowlers, in particular Fazal, relished and mastered back home). Noticing that the ball lost pace after pitching, Fazal used the seam more, and found a way to bowl out India for only 106 and 182. Pakistan won a Test match for the first time.
1. Ian Botham, 6-58 and 7-48, Bombay 1979/80
Had Bob Taylor not scored 43 and taken 10 catches, it would not have been an exaggeration to refer to the Jubilee Test as “Botham’s match”. Three days before the Test, Botham had won a double-wicket contest with Graham Gooch in front of a packed crowd at the same venue. Now, on an “unusually grassy” surface, he bowled brilliantly without finding the edge in the first spell, but returned to take Gavaskar’s outside edge and trigger a collapse: from 102-1, India folded for 242.
Then, England were 58-5 when Botham smashed 114 to take them to 296. When India batted, Botham bowled unchanged from lunch to stumps to have 6-48, and took another wicket with his first ball on the final day. Even without taking the hundred into account, this remains the only 13-wicket haul on Indian soil.
