From Mahela Jayawardene to Alan Border, get the list of players with most catches in international cricket

Former Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene holds the record for most catches in international cricket. The legendary Lankan batsman took a whopping 440 catches across 652 ODI, Test and T20I matches combined, translating to a return of 0.572 catches per outing. 

Jayawardene, whose career spanned between 1997 to 2015, played 448 ODIs, 149 Tests and 55 T20Is for his team. During this time, he scored a total of 25,957 runs at an average of 38.15.

The current Mumbai coach is, in fact, the only player to take more than 200 catches (218) in ODI cricket. As far as Test cricket is concerned, he is one of the three players alongside Rahul Dravid and Jacques Kallis to have a tally of more than 200 catches in the format. He ended his Test career with (205) catches.

Lastly, in the shortest format, he has 17 catches in 55 matches. Interestingly enough, Jayawardene is the only player to take more than 400 catches in international cricket.

Meanwhile, second in the list for most catches in international cricket is the former World Cup-winning captain Ricky Ponting. The Australian batting great took 364 catches in 560 matches across all three formats, averaging 0.507 takes per match.

Ponting, who played most matches (230) as an ODI captain, scored an impressive 27,483 runs in 560 matches, averaging an impressive 45.95.

Following the former Aussie captain in the list is Ross Taylor. Considered to be as one of the finest batsmen New Zealand has ever produced, Taylor took 351 catches in a mere 450 matches, translating it to 0.642 catches per innings.

Taylor’s best tally in terms of catches came in the shortest format, where he took 163 scalps in just 112 matches.

Jacques Kallis and Rahul Dravid complete the top five list with 338 and 334 catches in international cricket respectively. Kallish, who has 200 catches in 166 ODI matches, averaged 0.509 scalps per match during his career that spanned between 1995-2014.

Dravid, on the other hand, recorded a total of 210 catches in Test cricket alone while 124 came in the 244 ODI matches he played for India.

As far as the top 10 list goes, New Zealand’s Stephen Fleming (306), South Africa’s Graeme Smith (292), Australia’s Mark Waugh (289), West Indies’s Brian Lara (284) and Alan Border (283) occupy the remaining spots.

Most catches in international cricket

Featured photo: AFP / Jewel Samad