Most wickets in the Ashes: Shane Warne leads on 195, Mitchell Starc into the top five

He took them in 36 Ashes Tests between 1993 and 2007 at 23.25, with best innings figures of 8/71 and 11 five-wicket hauls. Glenn McGrath is next on 157, and Stuart Broad is the leading England bowler on 153.

Warne’s first ball in an Ashes Test, at Old Trafford in June 1993, spun past Mike Gatting’s outside edge to hit off stump and was christened the “ball of the century”. He finished that series with 34 wickets, and in the six Ashes series he went on to play in full he never took fewer than 23.

Most wickets in the Ashes: the top 12

Player	Team	Span	Mat	Wkts	Ave
Shane Warne	Australia	1993-2007	36	195	23.25
Glenn McGrath	Australia	1994-2007	30	157	20.92
Stuart Broad	England	2009-2023	40	153	28.96
Hugh Trumble	Australia	1890-1904	31	141	20.88
Ian Botham	England	1977-1989	32	128	28.04
Dennis Lillee	Australia	1971-1982	24	128	22.32
Mitchell Starc	Australia	2013-2026	27	128	25.57
Bob Willis	England	1971-1983	31	123	24.37
James Anderson	England	2006-2023	39	117	35.97
Nathan Lyon	Australia	2013-2025	32	115	29.50
Monty Noble	Australia	1898-1909	39	115	24.86
Ray Lindwall	Australia	1946-1959	29	114	22.44

Botham, Lillee and Starc are level on 128, and Lyon and Noble on 115. These figures count Ashes Tests only. England and Australia have also met in Tests outside the series — the two Centenary Tests and the 1979-80 tour among them — and those matches are excluded, which is why a career total here can differ from an England-v-Australia head-to-head total published elsewhere.

Mitchell Starc’s 2025-26 changed the list

Starc took 31 wickets at 19.93 in the 2025-26 Ashes, the most by any bowler in the series, with two five-fors and match figures of 10/113. He went into it on 97 and came out of it level with Botham and Lillee on 128.

Australia won that series 4-1, taking Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide and Sydney; England’s win came at Melbourne. Brydon Carse was the leading England bowler with 22 wickets, Scott Boland took 20 for Australia and Josh Tongue 18 from three Tests.

Starc and Nathan Lyon are the only bowlers in the top twelve who played in that series. Lyon managed two Tests and five wickets, and Pat Cummins, restricted to one appearance, took six.

England’s leading Ashes bowlers

Stuart Broad holds the England record with 153 wickets in 40 Ashes Tests. He passed Ian Botham’s 128 during the 2021-22 series and retired at The Oval at the end of the 2023 Ashes, the last ball of his career taking a wicket. His 8/15 at Trent Bridge in 2015, when Australia were bowled out for 60 before lunch on the first morning, is the best innings return by any bowler in an Ashes Test this century.

England bowler	Span	Mat	Wkts
Stuart Broad	2009-2023	40	153
Ian Botham	1977-1989	32	128
Bob Willis	1971-1983	31	123
James Anderson	2006-2023	39	117
Wilfred Rhodes	1899-1926	41	109
Sydney Barnes	1901-1912	20	106

James Anderson and Broad opened the bowling together in Ashes cricket for fourteen years and finished 36 wickets apart.

Five-fors, ten-fors and the best single performance

Sydney Barnes has the most five-wicket hauls in Ashes cricket, 12, from only 20 Tests. Warne, Clarrie Grimmett, Terry Alderman, Tom Richardson and Charlie Turner all have 11.

Warne and Tom Richardson share the record for ten-wicket matches, four each. Richardson did it in 14 Tests in the 1890s; Warne needed 36. Trumble, Bill O’Reilly, Johnny Briggs and George Lohmann have three.

The best bowling in a single Ashes Test remains Jim Laker’s 19 wickets at Old Trafford in 1956 — 9/37 and 10/53, the only ten-wicket innings in Ashes history. Bob Massie’s 16 at Lord’s in 1972, on debut, is the closest anyone has come since.

The best averages

Hugh Trumble’s 20.88 is the best average among the twelve, four hundredths ahead of McGrath’s 20.92 — and the two are separated by ninety years of cricket, Trumble bowling on uncovered pitches before the First World War. Dennis Lillee (22.32), Ray Lindwall (22.44) and Warne (23.25) come next. Four of the twelve average above 28 — Botham, Broad, Lyon and Anderson — and Anderson’s 35.97 is the highest on the list by more than six runs a wicket.

See also our lists of the players with the most runs in the Ashes and the most wickets in a single Ashes series, and the full Ashes winners list.

Interested in cricket betting? Check out our list of top cricket betting sites.

Featured photo: WILLIAM WEST / AFP