Since the inception of the World Test Championship in 2019, which have been the most lopsided bowler-batter face-offs across the competition’s history?
The ranking here is fairly simplistic: the pairs which saw the lowest batting average, across five or more dismissals. The batters must also be those who batted in the top seven more often than not, to eliminate tail-enders.
Stuart Broad v David Warner – cue shock and awe – doesn’t make this list. In WTC history, Broad’s 12 dismissals of Warner are the most for any bowler-batter pair, but the average of exactly 11 just about keeps this matchup out of the top ten.
Note: The matches listed refer only to WTC Tests in which the bowler bowled to the batter. Figures are correct as of December 9, 2025.
10. Mohammed Shami v Temba Bavuma
6 matches | 50 runs | 5 wickets | Avg 10.00
Not quite an individual matchup one might think of when it comes to ‘bunnies’. But Shami has bowled to Bavuma in six WTC Tests, dismissing him in five of them across three series.
In Visakhapatnam, Pune and Ranchi in 2019, Shami bowled Bavuma once and had him caught behind twice for scores of zero, eight and zero. At Centurion in 2021, Bavuma came in at the end of a Shami spell and played out a maiden. After getting set, he managed 14 of his 52 runs off Shami before he was caught behind.
Shami dismissed him one final time in Cape Town in 2022, for 28.
9. Stuart Broad v Marcus Harris
5 matches | 49 runs | 5 wickets | Avg 9.80
Broad-Warner is the big Ashes faceoff, but another left-handed Aussie opener also found it tough going against the England legend. Broad got rid of Harris thrice during the 2019 Ashes, and twice more during the 2021/22 tour.
At home, Broad didn’t need any fielders to help him out; Harris was lbw twice and bowled once. Down Under, keeper Jos Buttler completed the catches for both dismissals. The opener has only played two Tests since he was last dismissed by Broad, at Adelaide four years ago.
8. Pat Cummins v Jos Buttler
8 matches | 55 runs | 7 wickets | Avg 7.86
If this was a list of the top 15, Cummins would have featured thrice. As it is, his seven dismissals of Buttler in eight WTC Tests earn him the No.8 spot. Like Broad v Harris, this is entirely during the 2019 and 2021/22 Ashes.
Five of these dismissals came in the former, where Cummins was the top wicket-taker. Buttler averaged 24.7 overall, dragged down almost single-handedly by Cummins – against the other Australian bowlers, that figure was 41.2.
Buttler has not played Test cricket since Cummins dismissed him in both innings at Sydney in January 2022.
7. Scott Boland v Virat Kohli
4 matches | 38 runs | 5 wickets | Avg 7.60
Towards the end of Kohli’s Test career, the outside edge of his bat haunted Indian fans’ nightmares – never mind his own. Four of his five dismissals to the metronomic Boland came in the 2024/25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy on Australian wickets largely made to supplement the Victorian’s strengths of consistency and seam movement.
Read more: Five Tests, five wickets: Scott Boland maintains remarkable stranglehold over Virat Kohli
Kohli was caught twice by keeper Alex Carey, and twice in the slip cordon. Boland’s first dismissal of Kohli was in the 2023 WTC final, via – you guessed it – an outside edge, to second slip.
Boland continues to trouble England in the Ashes, but Kohli retired from Test cricket after the latest tour of Australia.
6. Kagiso Rabada v Kraigg Brathwaite
6 matches | 53 runs | 7 wickets | Avg 7.57
Incredible bowler, stubborn batter. Not a quick scorer at the best of times, Brathwaite is more the type to try and wear a bowler like Rabada down. But unfortunately, even wicket preservation has proven difficult against one of Test cricket’s premier strike bowlers.
In June 2021, Rabada got rid of Brathwaite thrice in a row across two Tests in St Lucia. When the West Indies visited South Africa in 2023, Rabada dismissed him in all four innings, in Centurion and Johannesburg.
There is some solace for Brathwaite though; in the Caribbean in 2024, he did not get out to Rabada even once across two Tests, surviving 50 deliveries for 14 runs.
5. Nathan Lyon v KS Bharat
4 matches | 37 runs | 5 wickets | Avg 7.40
Admittedly, Bharat was not the best batter at Test level. Even for India, he was a stop-gap for Rishabh Pant. But Lyon ensured that Bharat was more or less a non-factor in the 2023 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, in India.
Bharat made six, 17 and three in Delhi and Indore in that series, before getting to 44 on an easier track in Ahmedabad. The fifth wicket was a slog to which Bharat holed out in India’s doomed chase in the 2023 WTC final.
4. R Ashwin v Alex Carey
5 matches | 32 runs | 5 wickets | Avg 6.40
At Ashwin’s peak, you could have stuck any left-hander up against him, and they might have come away with such a record. Carey is the most in-form gloveman in Test cricket right now, but in the 2023 BGT he batted six times, and fell to Ashwin on five occasions.
Bowled, lbw, nicked to slip, lbw, nicked to short third for 36, 10, 0, 3, 0. About as comprehensive as it gets. In last year’s pink-ball Test in Adelaide – the last of Ashwin’s career – Carey made 7 (17) off his bowling, and didn’t lose his wicket to him.
3. Jasprit Bumrah v Usman Khawaja
5 matches | 33 runs | 6 wickets | Avg 5.50
There had to be a Bumrah entry on here. All six of the Khawaja wickets came in last year’s Border-Gavaskar Trophy, where the Indian quick put in one of the great bowling performances in a losing cause.
Both players played all five Tests, and Bumrah dismissed Khawaja in every one – once each at Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney, and twice in Brisbane (although for the Melbourne one, Khawaja may want to have a word with Sam Konstas).
Similar to Buttler v Cummins from earlier, whenever Khawaja survived India’s spearhead in the series, his returns were solid. In fact, against the rest of India’s attack, he made 151 runs at 50.33. Throw Bumrah into the mix, and it plummeted to 184 at 20.44.
2. Axar Patel v Ben Foakes
4 matches | 27 runs | 5 wickets | Avg 5.40
The mere mention of Ahmedabad 2021 is enough to send a chill down the English fan’s spine. Axar wreaked havoc with the pink ball, and Foakes was no exception, falling to the left-armer in both innings for 12 and eight.
In his other four innings on the same tour, Foakes fell to Axar once more. On England’s next tour of India in 2024, Axar only played two Tests, but had Foakes’ number both times in Hyderabad (even as England won).
1. Matt Henry v Zak Crawley
3 matches | 10 runs | 6 wickets | Avg 1.67
Perhaps the most incredible matchup on this list.
Henry and Crawley have played in four WTC Tests against each other, but the first of those in 2022 saw Crawley face just 10 balls, all from Trent Boult.
The first time Henry bowled to Crawley in a WTC Test was in New Zealand in 2024. Neither in Christchurch, nor Wellington nor Hamilton could the Englishman escape Henry’s clutches. In six out of six innings on the tour, Crawley lost his wicket to him; two lbw, two caught and bowled, one bowled and one caught at midwicket.
The batter’s highest score in the series was 21, in his first innings in Hamilton in the third Test. In fact, that was the only match where Crawley scored off Henry’s bowling in that series – before that, it was four innings, four dismissals and no runs!
The pair has also gone head-to-head in two Tests outside the WTC, where the record reads little better for Crawley; 19 runs, two wickets at an average of 9.5.
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