DelhiAlthough Jasprit Bumrah took one wicket each in all three T20 Internationals against Afghanistan in Delhi, his bowling figures in the second match on 15 September were 4-1-25-1. One maiden over is special in this. With this one maiden over, Bumrah became the bowler who bowled the most number of maiden overs among test bowlers in T20 International. Although according to the records till 17 September 2026, the record of most maiden overs in T20 International is 19 overs and these two bowlers are in the name of F Nsubuga (Uganda) and Muhammad Nadir (Rwanda), but among the bowlers of Test countries, Bumrah now tops the record of most maiden overs in T20 International with 13 overs.
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Although the maiden over gets special attention in the bowling records, its impact changes a lot depending on the format. In Test cricket, this means pressure on the batsman for a long time, in ODI it is the hallmark of bowling with precision and control, while in T20 International where an attempt is made to score runs on every ball, even a maiden over can win a match for the bowler. That's why Bumrah's recent success is special. Bumrah topped the list of bowlers from 'Full Member' countries in T20 International, leaving behind Zimbabwe's Richard Ngarawa (12) and India's Bhuvneshwar Kumar (10).
Bumrah's maiden over record is a testament to his control in the shortest international format of cricket and that is why it is not surprising to see his economy rate of 6.52. Today, when batsmen are making new records of attacking batting in T20 International, Bumrah's maiden over record is special. By the way, let us tell you that till now these Indian bowlers have bowled maiden overs in T20 International:
13 Jasprit Bumrah
10 Bhuvneshwar Kumar
5 Harbhajan Singh and Hardik Pandya
4 Arshdeep Singh, Ravindra Jadeja and Akshar Patel
3 R Ashwin and Ravi Bishnoi
2 Yuzvendra Chahal, Deepak Chahar, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Ashish Nehra and S Sreesanth.
1 Harshit Rana, Varun Chakraborty, Ajit Agarkar, Khalil Ahmed, Avesh Khan, Piyush Chawla, Ashok Dinda, Praveen Tambe, Amit Mishra, Mohammed Shami, Krunal Pandya, Irfan Pathan, Navdeep Saini, Sarandeep Singh, Washington Sundar and Mayank Yadav.
In this success of Bumrah, it is necessary to discuss two more names. These are Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan, who has bowled the most maiden overs in Test cricket, and Shaun Pollock, who has bowled the most maiden overs in ODIs.
Muttiah Muralitharan: He is the king of maiden overs in Test and has bowled a total of 1794 maiden overs in his career and is on top in this matter. After him in this list are Shane Warne (1761), James Anderson (1730), Anil Kumble (1576) and Glenn McGrath (1470). These names indicate that in Tests it is not the case that only spinners remain at the forefront in bowling maiden overs.
Muralitharan took a total of 800 Test wickets and this is also the highest in this format. Muralitharan used to target the stumps and the edges of the bat without giving any chances to score runs easily. The test economy rate is only 2.48 which is proof of his tremendous control. For him, bowling maiden overs was no less than an art.
Shaun Pollock: He was a great example of accurate bowling in ODIs. This former South African captain has bowled 313 maiden overs in ODIs and is on top. He is the only bowler to cross the count of 300 maiden overs in this format. Pollock's bowling was so accurate that he did not need to bowl very fast to trouble the batsmen. His ability to repeatedly bowl at the right spots, especially in the area outside the off stump, made it difficult for him to score runs. His 393 wickets in ODIs and economy rate of 3.68 are proof of this.
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In ODIs, Pollock is followed by Glenn McGrath (279), Wasim Akram (238), Kapil Dev (235) and Muralitharan (198).
Three formats and three…masters of true bowling. Plus three very different examples of amazing cricket skills that will be remembered as experts in making the batsman wait for runs.