In our list of best performances by great fast bowlers we will now talk about one of the best South Pacers who along with Dale Steyn was the perfect partnership as he was the tall one and he got a lot of bounce d om the pitch as well. We are talking about Morne Morkel who has done so well for South Africa for almost a decade plus in his international career. He is a legend of the game and now he guides the young fast bowlers around South Africa and across the world who want to play cricket and represent their nations. We will look at his records below.
Morne Morkel played international cricket from 2006-2018 which means 12 years at the top of the game and in these years he played 86 Test Matches for South Africa and he took 309 Test Wickets in those Matches at an average of 27.67 with 8 Five wicket hauls in test cricket. He also played 117 ODIs in his career and he got 188 ODI Wickets at an average of 25.32 with 2 Five wicket hauls in ODI cricket. He also played 44 T20IS for South Africa and he picked up 47 wickets in This format as well. So a total of more than 500 international wickets for South Africa. Let’s see his Top 5 Best Performances.
5/50 vs Bangladesh (2008)
This was the first 5 wicket haul for Morne Morkel in test cricket and it came in a winning cause so that makes it sweeter. This was a test match against a good Bangladesh test team at their home and in the first innings of the test match Bangladesh batted and Morne did not allow them to settle down at any point of time as he just kept on picking up wickets and in the 13 overs that he bowled he took 5 wickets for 50 runs and he was one of the major reasons that South Africa won this match by 5 wickets in the end. A great second test match for him.
Also Read | Top 5 Best bowling Performances of Allan Donald
3/39 and 4/59 vs England (2010)
The second performance on this list was a complete test match performance by Morne Morkel where he got lots of wickets in both innings of the test match and this match was against England and he was at his best. In the first innings England were decimated by Morkel and Steyn and Morne Morkel got 3 important wickets in this innings in just 11 overs of fast bowling and he gave away 39 runs. He bettered his performance in the second innings where he bowled 16 overs giving away 59 runs and he took 4 wickets in the second innings which meant 7 wickets in total in the test match and as a result South Africa won this test match easily by an innings and 74 runs.
Also Read | Top 5 Best bowling Performances of Dale Steyn in Test Cricket
6/23 vs New Zealand (2012)
His best ever test performance came in this test match and that too in the second innings of the New Zealand batting. This was a special performance from a great player. New Zealand needed 389 runs to win in the 4th innings and here Morne Morkel shined with the ball and he absolutely destroyed the New Zealand batting on his own and he gave away just 23 runs in 16.4 overs of fast bowling and he took 6 wickets . This performance stamped his authority in world cricket.
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4/87 and 5/23 vs Australia (2018)
This performance came in the later stages of his career and it was the last 5 wicket haul for Morne Morkel in his test career and it came in the series vs Australia. He was at his best even at the end of his career as he took 4 wickets in the first batting innings for Australia and gave away 87 runs in 21 overs but he saved the best for the 4th innings of this test match where he bowled just 9.4 overs and took 5 wickets for just 23 runs and South Africa won this test match by a whopping 322 runs and he retired at the peak of his bowling powers.
Also Read | Top 10 Greatest South African Cricketers of all time
5/21 vs Australia (2014)
This is his best ODI bowling performance and it came against the mighty Aussies in their home. Australia were batting first and he just kept picking up wickets at regular intervals and never allowed the batters to get into any sort of rhythm and this resulted in a small score by them.of 254 and Morne Morkel got 5 Wickets for just 21 runs in 8 overs and South Africa won the match by 5 wickets. This was his second 5 wicket haul in ODIs and his last as well.
