Most catches in international cricket: Mahela Jayawardene leads, Virat Kohli fifth

He took them in 768 innings across 652 matches between 1997 and 2015 — 205 in Tests, 218 in ODIs and 17 in T20Is — and he is the only fielder in the game’s history to pass 400. Ricky Ponting is next on 364.

Most catches in international cricket: the top 15

These are catches taken as a fielder, with Tests, ODIs and T20Is combined.

Player	Team	Span	Mat	Catches
Mahela Jayawardene	Sri Lanka	1997-2015	652	440
Ricky Ponting	Australia	1995-2012	560	364
Ross Taylor	New Zealand / Samoa	2006-2025	454	354
Steve Smith	Australia	2010-2026	362	350
Virat Kohli	India	2008-2026	562	344
Jacques Kallis	South Africa	1995-2014	519	338
Rahul Dravid	India	1996-2012	509	334
Joe Root	England	2012-2026	392	328
Stephen Fleming	New Zealand	1994-2008	396	306
Graeme Smith	South Africa	2002-2014	347	292
Mark Waugh	Australia	1988-2002	372	289
Brian Lara	West Indies	1990-2007	430	284
Allan Border	Australia	1978-1994	429	283
Younis Khan	Pakistan	2000-2017	408	281
Mohammad Azharuddin	India	1984-2000	433	261

Why there are no wicketkeepers on it

A keeper stands behind the stumps for every ball of an innings, so his catch count is not comparable with a fielder’s. Mark Boucher took 952 catches as a wicketkeeper, more than twice Jayawardene’s total, and Adam Gilchrist 813. Counting them together would make the list a record of who kept wicket longest.

Two men on the list did keep occasionally and those catches are excluded here: Rahul Dravid took 72 catches behind the stumps on top of his 334 in the field, and Younis Khan five.

Three of the top eight are still playing

Steve Smith is fourth on 350 and has the best rate on the list — 0.74 catches per innings fielded, against 0.57 for Jayawardene. He has taken 219 of them in Tests, level with Joe Root at the top of that list.

Virat Kohli is fifth on 344 and now plays only ODIs, having retired from T20Is after the 2024 World Cup and from Tests in May 2025. He is already India’s record holder, ahead of Dravid.

Joe Root is eighth on 328 and the closest of the three to the men above him, with 219 Test catches of his own.

Ross Taylor’s presence in third is the oddity. He retired from New Zealand duty in April 2022 on 351, then returned in October 2025 to play four T20Is for Samoa at the age of 41 and took three more catches, which is why his span now reads 2006-2025.

The record in each format

Joe Root and Steve Smith share the Test record on 219 catches each. Both passed Rahul Dravid’s 210, a mark that had stood since 2012. Root has needed 168 Tests to Smith’s 125.

Mahela Jayawardene holds the ODI record with 218, and he is the only fielder to have reached 200 in the format. Virat Kohli is second on 169.

David Miller leads the T20I list on 86, ahead of Mohammad Nabi on 82 and George Dockrell on 77. The format’s totals are far smaller because it has only existed since 2005.

India’s list

Virat Kohli has taken more catches than any other India player, 344 — 121 in Tests, 169 in ODIs and 54 in T20Is. Rahul Dravid is next on 333 for India, then Mohammad Azharuddin on 261, Sachin Tendulkar on 256 and Rohit Sharma on 243.

Format	India record	Catches
Tests	Rahul Dravid	209
ODIs	Virat Kohli	169
T20Is	Rohit Sharma	65

Dravid’s India figure is 209 rather than the 210 quoted above because one of those catches came in his single Test for the ICC World XI. Kohli’s ODI figure passed Azharuddin’s 156 and is the one India record on this page still moving. In T20Is, Hardik Pandya is one catch behind Rohit Sharma on 64 and Suryakumar Yadav third on 58, so that line is likely to change first.

See also our lists of the players with the most catches in Test history and the most catches in ODI history.

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Featured photo: AFP / Jewel Samad