We continue our countdown of the best Test bowling performances on Australian soil since 2000
Top 20 in 2020: The best Test bowling, 14-12
We've already counted down the 20 best Test moments and 20 best Test batting performances so far this century, and now it’s the turn of the bowlers!
The same criteria applies; performances have to be from Test matches since 2000 on Australian soil, with extra weight given to those that have come in famous victories for a bowler's team.
Before you get into this countdown, make sure you take a look at our Top 20 batting and Top 20 moments from earlier this year.
Re-live the countdown in full: 20-18 | 17-15 | 14-12 | 11-9 | 8-6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1
14) Glenn McGrath, 8-24
Australia v Pakistan, Perth, 2004
Image Id: A74FE35325CF492688D1C9B9C5A3AE49By Adam Burnett
The best of Glenn McGrath collided with the worst of Pakistan at the WACA Ground some 16 years ago and the result was, well, one-sided.
McGrath had 103 Tests and 463 wickets to his name leading into this series opener in December 2004. Those numbers were the product of more than a decade in Baggy Green, through which he had accumulated the ultimate fast-bowling acumen.
The paceman's ruthlessly simple mantra of 'aim for the top of off-stump' was on show from the outset of Australia's second bowling innings late on day three of this Test. Pakistan, faced with the daunting prospect of requiring 564 to win, simply wilted in the face of his efficiency.
Opener Imran Farhat fell before the close, failing to offer a shot to a McGrath delivery that had been angled across the left-hander but which straightened sharply and crashed into his pads. Ball-tracking technology soon showed the ball to be hitting – you guessed it – the top of off-stump.
The following morning, Pakistan's capitulation was as spectacular as it was predictable.
McGrath had Salman Butt caught in the gully driving, then claimed the prize wicket of Younis Khan with a lovely piece of seam movement that had the right-hander edging to Shane Warne at first slip.
At that point, the score read 3-43 and by his ninth over, McGrath had a barely believable six wickets to his name.
Image Id: 6FDEEC56865D4919B657906FB3C7E803When he collected his seventh, the only points of interest that remained in the contest were records, notably whether the paceman could enhance his legend by becoming the first Australian to take 10 wickets in a Test innings.
Michael Kasprowicz spoiled that possibility when he bowled Mohammad Sami, and then McGrath claimed his eighth wicket before Kasprowicz ended the rout before lunch was taken.
Pakistan had been skittled for 72, Australia had won by 491 runs, and McGrath had completed the best-ever innings haul at the WACA Ground – a startling 8-24.
The lack of fight in the opposition notwithstanding, it had been a sublime spell of fast bowling, and statistically the finest masterclass from a man who had made a career of producing them.
Image Id: 93D6426953E34183BA13C14D24FEA498"I was just running in, trying to hit the deck, hopefully get them in the right areas and, as it turned out, it probably ranks as one of my best days of bowling," he said.
"It was one of those days where they nicked a lot of balls instead of playing and missing ... Towards the end, that's as good as I've ever felt bowling.
"I couldn't be happier ... to walk off with eight-for on a ground where I haven't taken as many wickets as I would have liked. I didn't have a five-for on this ground before today, so that's another little goal crossed off, so I'm pretty happy.”
13) Jasprit Bumrah, 6-33
India v Australia, Melbourne, 2018
Image Id: C729FAAC40844E31BD6947D8096684B0By Louis Cameron
Jasprit Bumrah took 48 wickets in his first year of Test cricket but it took just one of them to show he was the real deal.
Having traded blows in the opening two Tests of their 2018-19 Australian tour, the Indians rounded on a fragile home side missing their best two batters in Melbourne for the annual Boxing Day event with a first ever series win Down Under in sight.
An extended Christmas Day hangover took hold as the MCG produced just 451 runs and seven wickets on the opening two days, about as underwhelming a start as the CD shop gift voucher your uncle gave you for Kris Kringle.
Bumrah was in the final days of a breakout year, having collected five-wickets hauls in South Africa and England, and was proving an even bigger handful in Australia.
Here was a fast bowler once deemed unsuitable for the rigours of Test cricket, so peculiar was his pitter-patter gallop and scattered matchstick arms for a bowling action that always seemed to finish too soon.
As a teenager, he had been whisked from anonymity to play in the Indian Premier League, and a pinpoint yorker combined with his unusual method of delivery saw him an instant success in international limited-overs games.
By the final days of 2018, aged 25, he was also India's most threatening Test bowler away from the subcontinent.
Image Id: 9C1F012C81B0458D8B2880F8838007F4As the Aussies teetered three wickets down before lunch on day three in Melbourne, Bumrah, who had already taken one, pulled off a piece of skill reserved only for an elite few.
Given his first five balls of the final over before the break to Shaun Marsh had been fast, probing examinations of the left-hander's defence, the trap had been set to perfection.
Yet Test cricket is a battle of discipline; it would be hard to find a qualified Test bowling coach who would not advise Bumrah to bowl a sixth stock ball on a good line and length.
As fate would have it, he instead sought advice from teammate Rohit Sharma, his IPL captain, who (true to character) encouraged him to gamble.
"The wicket was not doing a lot and the ball had become soft," Bumhrah later told cricket.com.au.
"Rohit was there at mid-off and he said, 'It's the last ball, you could try a slower ball'."
Bumrah did so, to devastating effect.
As a child, he had perfected his yorker by aiming at the thin rail of skirting board that marked the point where the wall met the floor at the of the end of the hallway he practiced in. When he hit that part of the wall, the ball would only make one sound, ensuring the noise disturbance to his mother in the other room would be minimal.
Had she been sitting in the slips cordon at the MCG, the soft thud on Marsh's pad after Bumrah delivered a perfect slower-ball yorker would hardly have raised an eyebrow.
Virat Kohli's wild, running appeal and subsequent celebration from second slip would have been more difficult to ignore, as the mental blow of a fourth victim before lunch left the Aussies in a position from which they could not recover.
Image Id: D45D5F84CB304582991FD844E4AE8273Bumrah claimed four more wickets, bowling full and fast on his way to 6-33, the best Test figures by an Indian at the MCG.
India, the No.1 Test side in the world, retained the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Melbourne and then won it outright in Sydney.
Kohli labelled Bumrah the best fast bowler in the world after the MCG victory, and his reasoning suggested the claim went beyond a captain pumping up the tires of one of his own.
Said Kohli: "The mindset he has is what separates him from anyone else in the world right now. He looks at the pitch, and he doesn't think, 'Oh it's a hard toil on this wicket.'
"He thinks, 'How can I make a breakthrough for the team?"
12) Michael Clarke, 3-5
Australia v India, Sydney, 2008
Image Id: A6E94EBEA07740C88B4234E0C141E18ABy Sam Ferris
Michael Clarke had been bugging Ricky Ponting all day to bowl before the reluctant captain threw his team’s confident youngster the ball with a few overs left, probably to shut him up more than anything else.
What resulted was a spectacular finish to a supercharged Test that is remembered more for the 'Monkeygate' scandal earlier in the match and not Clarke's heroics as the sun set and shadows swallowed the Sydney Cricket Ground.
With four overs remaining on day five of the second Test between Australia and India, the tourists, already one-nil down in the four-match series, were hanging tough, fighting for a draw with three wickets in hand.
Clarke's first over of gentle left-arm orthodox spin was nullified by stoic India captain Anil Kumble, who had batted two hours to keep his team in the game and the series.
But when Clarke started his second over, the penultimate one of the Test, Kumble was stuck stranded at the non-striker's end, leaving the unnaturally blond Australian to bowl to Harbhajan Singh, India’s champion off-spinner who was doing his best to restrain his natural attacking instincts.
As Clarke sent down his first ball on the line of off-stump, Harbhajan got only a half-step forward, reluctantly defending. The ball bit on the fifth-day pitch, spun and took the shoulder of the bat through to Mike Hussey at first slip.
Out walked left-arm paceman and No.10 RP Singh, who might have been expecting a similar delivery to the one that dismissed Harbhajan but was met with an arm-ball straight up, which he missed and was trapped lbw for a golden duck.
Image Id: 31FCAB0D4EEC4470A8B359DF3B18A1EFThe Australians and the SCG crowd went berserk, but the job was not done yet.
India's No.11 was the lanky fast bowler Ishant Sharma, the right-armer with flowing black locks, two right-handed gloves (which stalled proceedings while a replacement was trotted out to the middle) and on debut to face the hat-trick ball. Talk about pressure!
Clarke fired in two flatter deliveries with men all around the bat – who were undoubtedly reminding Ishant about the match situation, what was on the line and what Clarke was going to bowl next – but the 19-year-old was up to the task, safely defusing the pair of grenades.
With time and deliveries running out, Clarke changed tack and tossed one up for his fifth delivery, which Ishant handled in the same manner as Harbhajan; prodding forward, edging the ball and watching on as Hussey took the sharp catch at first slip.
Image Id: 95644D2A82AF4FEF986EBA3E539F7FD2The crowd went wild, Clarke went wild and his teammates went wild, perhaps too wild in hindsight.
Australia won from nowhere to record their 16th-straight Test victory and equal the record set by the Australian side of 1999-2001, not to mention an unassailable two-nil series advantage.
While it was one of the most remarkable Test wins in the fierce history of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, the focus after the match was not on Clarke's actions but the fallout from the on-field spat between Harbhajan and Andrew Symonds, which would consume the cricket world for the rest of the summer.
Top 20 in 2020: Best Test bowling
20) James Pattinson v New Zealand, Brisbane, 2011
19) Glenn McGrath v England, Brisbane, 2006
18) Anil Kumble v Australia, Sydney, 2004
17) Mohammad Asif v Australia, Sydney, 2010
16) Peter Siddle v England, Brisbane, 2010
15) Rene Farrell v England, Sydney, 2011
14) Glenn McGrath v Pakistan, Perth, 2004
13) Jasprit Bumrah v Australia, Melbourne, 2018
12) Michael Clarke v India, Sydney, 2008
11) Mitchell Johnson v South Africa, Perth, 2008
10) Vernon Philander v Australia, Hobart, 2016
9) Glenn McGrath v West Indies, Brisbane, 2000
8) Mitchell Johnson v England, Perth, 2010
7) Doug Bracewell v Australia, Hobart, 2011
6) Ajit Agarkar v Australia, Adelaide, 2003
5) Mitchell Johnson v England, Brisbane, 2013
4) Shane Warne v England, Adelaide, 2006
3) Dale Steyn v Australia, Melbourne, 2008
2) Nathan Lyon v India, Adelaide, 2014
1) Mitchell Johnson v England, Adelaide, 2013