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India’s best bowler on the current tour of West Indies, Ajit Agarkar has added a new milestone in his ODI Career. With the wicket of Ramnaresh Sarwan in the 4th ODI at the Queen’s Park Oval in Trinidad, Agarkar went onto pick up his 250th ODI wicket and thus became the 4th Indian bowler in achieving this feat. He is the 14th player in the ‘most wickets taken in ODIs’ list and is behind by Kapil Dev, who has taken three more wickets than Agarkar. The 28-year-old wiry Agarkar who has had more detractors than fans would be surprised to know that Kapil Dev had taken 225 ODIs to get to the figure of 253 and whereas Agarkar has taken his 250th in just his 163rd ODI! He ofcourse happens to be the most expensive bowler in the Top 20 wicket takers in ODIs with an economy of just over 5. The other two Indian bowlers who have taken more ODI wickets than Agarkar and Kapil Dev are Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath. Even the likes of Brett Lee and Shoaib Akhtar are behind Agarkar at the moment but they are expected to catch up soon.
Let’s have a look at the breakdown of the milestones of Ajit Agarkar’s bowling in ODIs:
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Agarkar’s 1st ODI victim was Adam Gilchrist, who got out cutting him to Azharuddin at point at Kochi, which was the 1st Match of the Triangular Series featuring India, Australia and Zimbabwe in the 1997/98 Season.
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Agarkar after taking his 50th ODI wicket that of Craig Wishcart in the 3rd ODI at Harare became the fastest bowler ever to take 50 ODI wickets (In just 23 matches beating the earlier record of Australian Great Dennis Lillee).
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He had to wait for a long time of another 44 matches to get to his 100th wicket, which was that of Zimbabwe’s Travis Friend in the 3rd ODI against Zimbabwe at Jodhpur in 2000/01.
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He looked to have improved his bowling this time around as he took just 30 more matches to get to another 50 wickets and his 150th wicket was a big one that of Sanath Jayasuriya in the 3rd Match of the NatWest Series at The Oval in 2002.
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Ajit Agarkar started to mature as a bowler as he kept his consistency intact to take another 36 matches to get to the next 50 wickets. His 200th scalp was that of Nafees Iqbal of Bangladesh in the 2nd ODI at Dhaka in 2004/05. This match was Bangladesh’s 1st ever ODI victory over India!
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And the next 50 wickets he took them in just 30 more matches and that was indications that Agarkar was a force to reckon in the ODIs. His 250th was that of the inform Ramnaresh Sarwan who was bounced out by Ajit Agarkar in the 4th ODI at Port of Spain in the ongoing series.