After talking about the best performances of all rounders and great batters today is the time to talk about a great left arm spinner who has done so well for England in the test cricket he played for England. He was the bowler who could do well on any pitch and taking 5 Wickets in an innings for him was a piece of cake. I am talking about none other than Monty Panesar who was a genuine match winner for England in the 2010s in test cricket. We will talk about his records below.
Monty Panesar played test cricket from 2006-2013. He did not play much white ball cricket so we will majorly focus on his test career. Monty Panesar played 50 Test Matches for England and in those Matches he picked up 167 wickets at an average of 34.71 and he took 12 Five wicket hauls and 2 times he has taken 10 wickets in a test match. He only played 26 ODIs and he got 24 wickets in ODIs. Let’s look at his Top 5 Best Performances.
3/21 and 5/72 vs Pakistan (2006)
The first performance that we will talk about is this match winning performance against Pakistan in 2006 where he took 8 wickets in the test match. In the first innings he took 3 wickets in 7.4 overs and only gave away 21 Runs but saved his best for the second batting innings of Pakistan. He bowled for 18.1 overs in this innings and he got his second 5 wicket haul in test cricket and he only gave 72 runs and won the match for England by an innings and 120 Runs. After this performance Monty Panesar had arrived in test cricket.
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6/129 vs West Indies (2007)
This match was at Lord’s and he got 6 Wickets in the first innings and his name on the Lord’s honors board. Lord’s is a fast bowling pitch and in that pitch to get 6 out of the 10 wickets is a special effort. It was the first batting innings for the West Indies and he bowled a marathon 36.1 overs for 129 runs and got 6 Wickets in the innings. Everyone knew after seeing this performance that conditions don’t matter to him and that he is extremely skilled as a spin bowler.
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6/126 vs New Zealand (2008)
This was another incredible away performance by Monty Panesar and it came against New Zealand at their home. By this time the world had known about the prowess of Monty. It was the 4th innings of this test match and the match was in the balance and Monty Panesar produced a match winning spell of spin bowling as he bowled for a massive 46 overs and got 6 Wickets giving away 126 runs and he made England win the match by 121 runs and this performance gave him a lot of respect.
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5/129 and 6/81 vs India (2012)
One of the most iconic overseas spin bowling performances on Indian soil happened in this match when Monty Panesar went loose and got 11 wickets in the match and after this performance he became a national hero in England. In the first innings he got 5 Wickets of India in 47 overs and he only gave away 129 runs and India could not make more than 327. Then in the 3rd innings of the match Monty Panesar again was at his best as he got 6 Wickets this time in 22 overs and he gave away 81 runs and England won the match by 10 wickets.
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4/90 vs India (2012)
This was the last great performance by Monty Panesar in test cricket and it resulted in a series win against India in India and since 2012 no yean has been able to win a test series in India. In this match at Eden Gardens Monty took 4 wickets in the first innings as he bowled for 40 overs and giving away 90 runs broke the back of the Indian batting and as a result England won this match by 7 wickets and Monty Panesar had become a legend in test cricket.
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