The King of Speed joins the 400 Club

Dale Steyn made his debut against England in 2004. 80 Tests and 16,634 deliveries later, he hit the 400 Test wickets mark. Rajneesh Gupta looks at the Speed King's career.

Dale Steyn took 400 wickets in Test cricket when he had Bangladesh's Tamim Iqbal caught at slip by Hashim Amla on the opening day of the Mirpur Test.

Steyn is the second South African after Shaun Pollock and only the 13th bowler in Test history to reach the cherished landmark.

The 13-member club had three Indians, two Australians, two West Indians, two South Africans and one each from Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Pakistan and England.

New Zealand's legendary Richard Hadlee was the first bowler to accomplish the feat, against India in February 1990.

His great Indian rival, that magnificent all-rounder Kapil Dev, joined him two years later, followed by the lanky West Indian pace genius Courtney Walsh (in 1999), arguably the greatest left-arm fast bowler ever Wasim Akram (in 2000), the amazing Curtly Ambrose (in 2000).

The greatest leg-spinner of all time, Shane Warne, became the first spinner (in 2001) to join the illustrious club.

Warnie was soon joined by another spinner, Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan in 2002.

'Pigeon' Glenn McGrath -- he of the lethal deliver in the corridor of uncertainty -- (in 2002), the fabulous Anil Kumble (in 2004), the consistent Shaun Pollock (in 2006) and the shrewd Harbhajan Singh (in 2011) are the most recent members of this august company.

The 400 Test wickets club now has nine pace bowlers (eight right-arm and one left-arm) and four spinners (two leg-spinners and two off-spinners).

Meet the 400 Club

Bowlers with 400 wickets in Test cricket

	Mts	Balls	Runs	Wkts	Best	Avg	SR	5I	10M
Muttiah Muralitharan (SL)	133	44,039	18,180	800	9/51	22.72	55.05	67	22
Shane Warne (Aus)	145	40,705	17,995	708	8/71	25.41	57.49	37	10
Anil Kumble (Ind)	132	40,850	18,355	619	10/74	29.65	65.99	35	8
Glenn McGrath (Aus)	124	29,248	12,186	563	8/24	21.64	51.95	29	3
Courtney Walsh (WI)	132	30,019	12,688	519	7/37	24.44	57.84	22	3
Kapil Dev (Ind)	131	27,740	12,867	434	9/83	29.64	63.92	23	2
Richard Hadlee (NZ)	86	21,918	9,611	431	9/52	22.29	50.85	36	9
Shaun Pollock (SA)	108	24,353	9,733	421	7/87	23.11	57.85	16	1
Harbhajan Singh (Ind)	102	28,430	13,447	416	8/84	32.32	68.34	25	5
Wasim Akram (Pak)	104	22,627	9,779	414	7/119	23.62	54.65	25	5
James Anderson (Eng)	107	23,826	12,134	413	7/43	29.38	57.69	18	2
Curtly Ambrose (WI)	98	22,103	8,501	405	8/45	20.99	54.58	22	3
Dale Steyn (SA)	80	16,716	9,040	402	7/51	22.48	41.58	25	5

The 400 Club members with the number of wickets against each opponent:

	Wkts	Aus	Ban	Eng	Ind	NZ	Pak	SA	SL	WI	Zim	Wld XI
Muttiah Muralitharan (SL)	800	59	89	112	105	82	80	104	X	82	87	X
Shane Warne (Aus)	708	X	11	195	43	103	90	130	59	65	6	6
Anil Kumble (Ind)	619	111	15	92	X	50	81	84	74	74	38	X
Glenn McGrath (Aus)	563	X	5	157	51	57	80	57	37	110	6	3
Courtney Walsh (WI)	519	135	X	145	65	43	63	51	8	X	9	X
Kapil Dev (Ind)	434	79	X	85	X	25	99	8	45	89	4	X
Richard Hadlee (NZ)	431	130	X	97	65	X	51	X	37	51	X	X
Shaun Pollock (SA)	421	40	9	91	52	43	45	X	48	70	23	X
Harbhajan Singh (Ind)	416	95	9	45	X	43	25	60	52	56	31	X
Wasim Akram (Pak)	414	50	0	57	45	60	X	13	63	79	47	X
James Anderson (Eng)	413	87	9	X	82	52	32	57	30	53	11	X
Curtly Ambrose (WI)	405	128	X	164	15	13	42	21	14	X	8	X
Dale Steyn (SA)	402	69	28	46	63	58	47	X	35	48	8	X

Steyn is the joint second fastest to reach the landmark in terms of fewest Tests taken with Richard Hadlee -- both took 80 Tests to do so.

Only Muttiah Muralitharan reached the mark in fewer Tests.

Quickest to 400 wicket mark

(Least matches taken)

Player	For	Mts
Muttiah Muralitharan	SL	72
Richard Hadlee	NZ	80
Dale Steyn	SA	80
Anil Kumble	Ind	85
Glenn McGrath	Aus	87
Shane Warne	Aus	92
Wasim Akram	Pak	96
Harbhajan Singh	Ind	96
Curtly Ambrose	WI	97
Shaun Pollock	SA	103
James Anderson	Eng	104
Courtney Walsh	WI	107
Kapil Dev	Ind	115

Steyn needed to bowl only 16,634 deliveries (legitimate) to reach this mark, which is the least among all 13 bowlers.

While it is not possible to ascertain the exact number of deliveries bowled by each bowler to reach the landmark, it is pretty much clear that no one else did so in fewer than 20,000 balls.

Richard Hadlee is a distant second taking anything between 20,317 and 20,450 balls.

Calculating the strike-rate for each bowler up to the end of innings in which the record was made will give us a fairly good idea about a bowler. Steyn is just phenomenal on that count.

He, in fact, is the only one in this exclusive club to take less than 50 balls for each wicket.

Quickest to reach 400 wicket mark in Tests

(Best strike-rate)

SR	Player	For	Mts	Balls	Runs	Wkts	Avg
41.58	Dale Steyn	SA	80	16716	9040	402	22.48
50.75	Richard Hadlee	NZ	80	20453	8914	403	22.12
51.40	Glenn McGrath	Aus	87	20559	8658	400	21.65
52.63	Wasim Akram	Pak	96	21261	9220	404	22.82
54.19	Curtly Ambrose	WI	97	21785	8427	402	20.96
57.77	James Anderson	Eng	104	23166	11763	401	29.33
57.91	Courtney Walsh	WI	107	23165	10144	400	25.36
58.15	Shaun Pollock	SA	103	23375	9325	402	23.20
60.15	M Muralitharan	SL	72	24061	9484	400	23.71
62.26	Kapil Dev	Ind	115	24967	11894	401	29.66
63.07	Shane Warne	Aus	92	25418	10526	403	26.12
67.21	Anil Kumble	Ind	85	26885	11358	400	28.40
67.45	Harbhajan Singh	Ind	96	26981	12722	400	31.81

Figures calculated up to the end of an innings

Glenn McGrath is the quickest to the 400 wicket mark in terms of least days since making his Test debut. He did so in 3,266 days (under 9 years). At the other end of the scale Richard Hadlee took the longest -- just over 17 years!

Quickest to reach 400 wicket mark

(Least days from debut)

Days	Player	For	Started on	Reached on
3266	Glenn McGrath	Aus	12 Nov 1993	21 Oct 2002
3428	Muttiah Muralitharan	SL	28 Aug 1992	15 Jan 2002
3524	Shane Warne	Aus	02 Jan 1992	25 Aug 2001
3878	Dale Steyn	SA	17 Dec 2014	30 Jul 2015
4049	Shaun Pollock	SA	16 Nov 1995	16 Dec 2006
4391	James Anderson	Eng	22 May 2003	29 May 2015
4521	Curtly Ambrose	WI	02 Apr 1988	17 Aug 2000
4853	Harbhajan Singh	Ind	25 Mar 1998	07 Jul 2011
4859	Kapil Dev	Ind	16 Oct 1978	03 Feb 1992
5173	Anil Kumble	Ind	09 Aug 1990	06 Oct 2004
5230	Courtney Walsh	WI	09 Nov 1984	05 Mar 1999
5622	Wasim Akram	Pak	25 Jan 1985	16 Jun 2000
6212	Richard Hadlee	NZ	02 Feb 1973	04 Feb 1990

Three of the four spinners in the club are the youngest to reach the mark, with Muttiah Muralitharan on the top -- aged 29 years, 273 days.

Richard Hadlee -- the first bowler ever to reach the milestone -- remains the oldest.

Youngest to reach 400 wicket mark

Age	Player
29 Yrs 273 Days	Muttiah Muralitharan (SL)
31 Yrs 4 Days	Harbhajan Singh (Ind)
31 Yrs 346 Days	Shane Warne (Aus)
32 Yrs 33 Days	Dale Steyn (SA)
32 Yrs 254 Days	Glenn McGrath (Aus)
32 Yrs 303 Days	James Anderson (Eng)
33 Yrs 28 Days	Kapil Dev (Ind)
33 Yrs 153 Days	Shaun Pollock (SA)
33 Yrs 355 Days	Anil Kumble (Ind)
34 Yrs 13 Days	Wasim Akram (Pak)
36 Yrs 126 Days	Courtney Walsh (WI)
36 Yrs 331 Days	Curtly Ambrose (WI)
38 Days 216 Days	Richard Hadlee (NZ)

All statistics updated till July 30, 2015.