They bowled on the spot - for hours on end

We’ve looked at maiden overs in ODI cricket. Now, let’s shift focus to the same in Tests.

A few days back, I had come out with an article on the maiden overs in ODI matches. In this article, I will be looking at a related area, this time in Test matches.

Over the years, bowlers have bowled long economical spells on Test matches. I will look at some of these performances in this article.

I have set minimum criteria of 30 6-ball overs for consideration. This represents around a day’s work for bowlers, a few more for spinners and a few less for the speedsters. The other criteria is that the runs conceded per over should be less than 1.

A total of 61 innspells qualify under this set of criteria. I will present here the top-20.



The spell of Nadkarni was the type of innspell the reader could find in “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not”. Over after over, Nadkarni bowled at Barrington and Bolus at Chennai. I was at college and had the misfortune to hear the complete radio commentary. I myself would have asked for my money back (what money, the reader might well ask). So imagine the plight of the spectators who would have paid money to get in. This innspell included 21 consecutive maidens. Barrington and Bolus could not score a single for 131 balls off Nadkarni!!!.

The scorecard is reproduced below. Please remember that in those days the opening batsmen for India also opened the bowling and rolled the ball on the ground to remove the shine.



The other amazing innspell I would like to point out is Gibbs’ effort of 53.3-37-38-8. While Nadkarni’s was mainly a negative effort, contrast this with Gibbs’ spell. More surprising was the fact that the Indians were the opponents.

It can be seen that the latest in the top-20 is vintage 1990. Hence, I have given also the most economical spell in recent years, that of Muralitharan against Zimbabwe. 

Finally spare a thought for Laker’s amazing 1956 innspell against Australia of 51.2-23-52-10. If two singles fewer had been scored, this masterpiece would have come into this list.