Who among the following is the first player in the history of Test Cricket to take 200 wickets against left-handed batsmen ?

Correct — D, (d) Ravichandran Ashwin. He became the first bowler in the history of Test cricket to dismiss left-handed batsmen 200 times, reaching the mark during the second Test against England at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai in February 2021 — and the two-hundredth left-hander he dismissed was Stuart Broad, who is offered as option (c) of this very question. There is a reason the record belongs to an off-spinner and not to one of the great fast bowlers or to the leading wicket-taker of all time. An off-break pitched to a left-hander turns away from him, towards the slips, which is the direction in which a batsman is least able to cover the ball and most likely to edge it; the same delivery to a right-hander turns into the pads and is far safer. Ashwin adds to that a genuine command of the ball that goes the other way and a willingness to bowl round the wicket into the rough outside the left-hander's off stump, so that both his stock ball and his variation threaten the outside edge. The tally also reflects opportunity: he played much of his cricket on Indian pitches that assist spin from the first day, and the era he bowled in was full of left-handed openers and middle-order batsmen. Reading the question carefully is the whole skill here. The qualifier 'against left-handed batsmen' does all the work; strip it out and the answer would be a different name entirely, which is precisely what the first three options invite. As context for a reader today, Ashwin retired from international cricket in December 2024 with 537 Test wickets in 106 matches, second among Indians only to Anil Kumble's 619, but the record this question asks about was set in that Chennai Test.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)Muttiah Muralitharan — Muttiah Muralitharan is the obvious guess, because he stands at the head of every list of Test wicket-takers with 800 in 133 matches, a total no bowler has approached. But leading the overall list and leading a particular sub-list are different things, and this question asks about a sub-list. Muralitharan's stock delivery was an off-break, which turns into the left-hander rather than away from him, and his doosra was the ball he used to trouble them; his greatest hauls came against sides whose principal batsmen were right-handed. He also retired from Tests in 2010, well before the record in question was set. The wider habit worth building is to check whether an option answers the qualifier in the stem or only the general subject, because a question about a specific record will always offer the holder of the famous one.
• (b)James Michael Anderson — James Michael Anderson is a well-designed distractor because his case is genuinely strong on reasoning. He is England's leading wicket-taker with 704 in Test cricket, he bowled for over two decades until his retirement in July 2024, and his stock ball, the away-swinger to a right-hander, becomes an in-swinger to a left-hander, with the ball that leaves the left-hander available from over the wicket as well. He has dismissed a great many left-handers. What he did not do is get there first: the milestone of two hundred was reached by Ashwin in February 2021, and the record is for being first, not for the largest number at some later date. Note also that the question gives his full name, which is how it appears in the scorecards, rather than the 'Jimmy' Anderson of commentary.
• (c)Stuart Broad — Stuart Broad is the sting in the item: he is not the bowler who took the wickets, he is the wicket. Broad, a right-arm fast bowler who bats left-handed, was the two-hundredth left-hander Ashwin dismissed, which is how the record came to be completed in that Chennai Test. His own bowling record is formidable in its own right — 604 Test wickets by the time he retired at the end of the 2023 Ashes, including a spell of eight for fifteen against Australia at Trent Bridge in 2015 — but a fast bowler's advantage against left-handers is nothing like an off-spinner's, and no seamer had reached two hundred of them before Ashwin did. An option that names a player who appears in the story in a different role is a favourite device of this paper's current affairs block.

Cricket statistics are kept not only in aggregate but in cross-tabulations — wickets against left-handers, runs in the fourth innings, dismissals in a particular country, five-wicket hauls away from home — and a question built on one of those cross-tabulations is testing whether the candidate read the qualifier. The cricketing content behind this one is the geometry of spin. A right-arm off-spinner's stock ball turns from off to leg, which for a right-handed batsman means it comes in towards the stumps and the pads, and for a left-hander means it moves away towards the slip cordon; a left-arm orthodox spinner's ball does the reverse. That is why teams have long tried to keep a left-hander and a right-hander batting together, and why an off-spinner is usually preferred against a top order full of left-handers. Ashwin's particular strengths within that geometry are a well-disguised ball that goes the other way, the carrom ball flicked out of the fingers, changes of pace and of the angle of delivery, and long spells bowled to a plan. He finished as the seventh-highest wicket-taker in Test history and the second-highest for India.

Key facts

• Ravichandran Ashwin was the first bowler in Test history to take 200 wickets against left-handed batsmen.
• He reached the mark in the second Test against England at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai, in February 2021.
• The 200th left-hander he dismissed was Stuart Broad, who bats left-handed.
• An off-break turns away from a left-handed batsman, towards the slips, which is what gives an off-spinner the advantage against them.
• Ashwin retired from international cricket in December 2024 with 537 Test wickets in 106 matches, the second-highest for India after Anil Kumble's 619.
• Muttiah Muralitharan holds the record for the most Test wickets, 800 in 133 matches, and retired from Tests in 2010.
• James Anderson finished with 704 Test wickets and retired in July 2024; Stuart Broad finished with 604 and retired in 2023.

Common traps

• Answering the general question instead of the specific one. The holder of the overall wickets record is not automatically the holder of a qualified record.
• Assuming the most prolific bowler in a category is the first to a milestone in it. The question asks who got there first.
• Overlooking that one of the options is in the story as the batsman rather than the bowler.
• Dating the record by the paper rather than by the event; the milestone belongs to a Test match in Chennai in February 2021.
• Treating a retired player's totals as fixed when they were not at the time. Figures quoted in a card are final totals; figures in a paper are those of the moment it was set.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following bowlers has taken the highest number of wickets in Test cricket ?

  • (a)Shane Warne
  • (b)Muttiah Muralitharan
  • (c)James Anderson
  • (d)Anil Kumble

  Answer(b) Muttiah Muralitharan

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Ravichandran Ashwin completed 200 dismissals of left-handed batsmen in Test cricket in a match played at which one of the following venues ?

  • (a)Eden Gardens, Kolkata
  • (b)M.A. Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai
  • (c)Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai
  • (d)Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi

  Answer(b) M.A. Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai