On Sunday, Kemar Roach joined a select list of West Indies bowlers to take 300 Test wickets. He achieved this by firing the sacked Asita Fernando. He became only the fifth West Indian bowler to achieve this feat, and the 41st overall.Roach’s career, spanning nearly 17 years and marred by injury and failure, nevertheless did not prevent him from carving out a special place in West Indies Test history.His strike rate of 51.8 is the second best among five West Indians with over 300 wickets, behind only Malcolm Marshall (46.7).Reaching 300 Test wickets wasn’t the only milestone Roach completed in Tests on Sunday. He also took 200 wickets in Tests in the Caribbean. Courtney Walsh has the most West Indies wickets with 229, while Curtley Ambrose has 203, currently only one ahead of Roach. His eight five-wicket hauls are second only to Ambrose, who has eleven.
Roach has a bowling rate of 45.5 in home Tests, which is better than Ambrose and Walsh. In fact, his strike rate is fourth among bowlers with over 200 wickets in home Tests. Roach’s average of 22.04 ranks eighth among the 25 bowlers with over 200 wickets at home.Roach’s landmark game was played in the North Sound, his happy hunting ground in this format: he took 60 wickets in just 11 matches, at an average of just 16.75, and scored once in every 35.9 balls. Just three bowlers with over 50 wickets at the ground have an average lower than Roach’s at North Sound, and his strike rate is the fifth highest.
The Second Coming of Roach
Since his debut in 2009, no other West Indian bowler has taken even 200 wickets. In fact, Shannon Gabriel’s 166 wickets are the second most by the West Indies during this period. Roach has taken more (178) since his return in August 2017.
Between 2009 and 2016, Roach took 122 wickets in 37 matches at a strike rate of 30.23 and a strike rate of 55.5.
But the performance since this return in 2017 has become one of the best in the world. Roach’s average over this period is 24.5, ranking him eighth among the 29 bowlers who have taken 100 wickets or more. His strike rate of 49.2 is also among the top 10 among these 29 bowlers.
Top Quality Wickets and Early Strike
One of the highlights of Roach’s Test career is that most of the wickets he has taken have come from batting in the order. More than half of his career wickets came from players in the top four – 154 out of 300. The 51.33% coming from the top four is the second best among the 87 bowlers with 200 or more Test wickets.
Chaminda Vaas is slightly ahead at 52.11 as 185 of his 355 wickets came from the top four batters. Roach even ranks second in terms of wickets taken among the top three batters. As many as 128 of his 300 wickets are in the top three, which is 42.67%, second only to Zaheer Khan’s 45.02 (140 for 311).
Success against top-level batters is impossible without making the most of the new ball, which Roach did effectively. A total of 93 wickets were taken in the first 15 overs of Roach’s Test innings. Only four bowlers have taken more wickets at this stage since his debut.
Since his return in 2017, Roach has looked to be at his best in the early innings. In his first spells he took 53 wickets at an average of just 19.04 and one strike every 43.81 balls. Among bowlers with 30 or more wickets in their first innings during this period, Roach’s average is fourth, while only five bowlers have a better strike rate.
Ahead of the rest of the planet
Often during his career, Roach found himself either lacking support or being much better than his teammates, making his career bowling average (26.84) much more valuable. In all the innings he bowled, the other West Indies bowlers combined to average only 35.20, 1.312 higher than Roach’s average.
Among all West Indies bowlers with over 100 wickets, this ratio ranks third, behind only Ambrose (1,401) and Marshall (1,314). Compared to all 41 bowlers with over 300 wickets, Roach finds himself ninth in the ratio of his teammates’ bowling average to his own.
This gap became even more apparent upon his return in 2017: although his average during this period was 24.51, his teammates averaged 33.03 alongside him. The ratio here is 1.348, which is the fourth highest among the 49 bowlers in the world with 75 or more wickets during this period.
At 38, Roach has become someone who should be celebrated more often. His latest milestone served as a reminder of that.