When it comes to sheer volume of wickets across a career, one name sits so far ahead of the field that the record has felt untouchable for well over a decade — and the gap to second place tells its own story.
## Muttiah Muralitharan Stands Alone
The Sri Lankan off-spinner finished his international career with 1,347 wickets across Tests, ODIs and T20Is combined, a tally built on 800 Test wickets, 534 ODI wickets and 13 T20I wickets — the record in both of the first two formats individually. Muralitharan’s unique bowling action generated extraordinary turn on virtually any surface, making him equally dangerous in home conditions and away, over a career spanning nearly two decades from 1992 to 2011.
## The Top of the All-Format List
1. **Muttiah Muralitharan (Sri Lanka)** — 1,347 wickets
2. **Shane Warne (Australia)** — 1,001 wickets, the second bowler ever to cross 1,000
3. **James Anderson (England)** — 976 wickets, the leading fast bowler on the list
4. **Anil Kumble (India)** — 956 wickets, India’s all-time leading wicket-taker across formats
5. **Glenn McGrath (Australia)** — 949 wickets
Only Muralitharan and Warne have ever crossed 1,000 international wickets, a threshold that remains a genuine outlier even among the format’s greatest bowlers.
## Format-by-Format Leaders
– **Tests:** Muttiah Muralitharan — 800 wickets
– **ODIs:** Muttiah Muralitharan — 534 wickets, with Wasim Akram the first bowler ever to reach 300 ODI dismissals
– **T20Is:** Shakib Al Hasan (Bangladesh) and Tim Southee (New Zealand) currently lead the format, a reflection of how much later T20I cricket arrived relative to the other two formats — and a reminder of just how differently the [fastest centuries record book](/fastest-centuries-in-cricket-history) reads by format too
## The Active Players Chasing History
James Anderson remains the highest-wicket taker among recently active bowlers, while Ravichandran Ashwin and Shakib Al Hasan continue adding to their tallies in the formats they still play. Realistically, though, none appear on pace to seriously threaten Muralitharan’s combined total — a gap that has only grown more secure as fewer bowlers today play extended careers across all three formats simultaneously.
## Why the Record May Never Fall
Modern scheduling, with its heavy T20 league workloads and increasingly specialised bowlers who focus on just one or two formats, makes a repeat of Muralitharan’s all-format volume increasingly unlikely. For context on how today’s bowlers are performing within the current [ICC Test Championship cycle](/icc-test-championship-points-table), several contenders are building strong reputations format-by-format — but matching a genuine three-format great remains a different challenge entirely.
Chaminda Vaas, another Sri Lankan, rounds out an underrated case for the country’s bowling pedigree, finishing his own career with 761 international wickets across formats.