Jasprit Bumrah vs Mohammed Shami Stats: Test, ODI, T20I & IPL

Jasprit Bumrah takes a Test wicket for 19.79 runs. Mohammed Shami takes one for 27.71. That eight-run gap is the largest between any two Indian seam bowlers who have both taken more than 200 Test wickets, and it is the reason this comparison resolves more cleanly in Tests than most pairings on this site.

Bumrah is the outlier, not Shami. Reaching 200 Test wickets at an average under 20 had not been done before in the format's history, and Bumrah did it in his 44th Test — the first bowler to concede fewer than 4,000 runs across his first 200. Shami's 27.71 is an excellent figure by any ordinary standard; it looks modest only against a record that is unlike anything Indian fast bowling has produced.

Where Shami answers is in one-day cricket and specifically in World Cups, where he holds records Bumrah does not approach. The two men bowled together in the same attacks for most of a decade, and the sensible reading is that they were complementary rather than ranked.

The two records

Format	Jasprit Bumrah	Mohammed Shami
Tests	52 matches, 234 wickets at 19.79, best 6/27, 16 five-fors	64 matches, 229 wickets at 27.71, best 6/56, 6 five-fors
ODIs	91 matches, 151 wickets at 23.74, best 6/19, 2 five-fors	108 matches, 206 wickets at 24.05, best 7/57, 6 five-fors
T20Is	95 matches, 121 wickets at 18.08, best 4/15	25 matches, 27 wickets at 28.18, best 3/15
First-class	80 matches, 326 wickets at 21.45, best 6/27, 22 five-fors	97 matches, 376 wickets at 26.28, best 8/90, 2 ten-fors
IPL	142 matches, 181 wickets at 22.78, economy 7.32, best 5/10	132 matches, 145 wickets, economy 8.67, best 4/11
Career	2016 onwards	2013 onwards

Bumrah's international figures follow his career record as revised in 2026; Shami's are quoted to 12 February 2026, and the IPL rows are counted from ball-by-ball data through the 2026 final. Both careers remain open in at least one format, so these rows can move.

Tests: an average that had no precedent

The Bumrah Test record is worth stating precisely, because loose versions of it circulate.

He reached 200 Test wickets in his 44th match, becoming the first bowler in the format's history to reach that mark at an average below 20, and the first to concede fewer than 4,000 runs getting there. He had earlier been the fastest Indian fast bowler to 150, in 34 Tests. He was the first bowler to hold the number one ICC ranking in all three formats, and the first Indian pace bowler to top the Test bowling rankings. His nine-wicket match at Melbourne in December 2024 was part of the season that earned him the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy as ICC Men's Test Cricketer of the Year for 2024, and his 32 wickets in the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy are the most by an Indian bowler in an overseas series.

Sixteen five-wicket hauls in 52 Tests, against Shami's six in 64, is the ratio that carries the argument. Bumrah does not merely concede fewer runs per wicket; he runs through sides at a frequency Shami has not matched, and he does it primarily abroad, where India's seam bowlers have historically found wickets hardest to come by.

Shami's Test record is a fine one held back by two things. The first is that his best years overlapped with a home schedule where spin bowled most of the overs. The second is that an ankle injury after the 2023 World Cup removed him from the format for more than a year, and his 64 Tests are fewer than his ability warranted. His two first-class ten-wicket matches, against none for Bumrah, are the one Test-shaped column he leads.

For the national context, most Test wickets for India lists both, and best bowling average is where Bumrah's 19.79 sits.

One-day cricket, where Shami answers

The ODI averages are almost identical — 23.74 against 24.05, a gap of 0.31 that means nothing — and the wicket columns are not: 206 to 151, in 108 matches to 91.

The separation is in five-wicket hauls and in tournament work. Shami has six ODI five-fors to Bumrah's two, and his best figures of 7 for 57 are the best any bowler has returned in a World Cup knockout match, taken in the 2023 semi-final against New Zealand at the Wankhede. He is India's leading wicket-taker in World Cup history, and his 24 wickets in seven matches during the 2023 edition made him that tournament's leading bowler at an average of 10.70.

Bumrah's role in the same attack was different and is worse served by the wicket column. He bowled the new ball and then returned at the death, and his function in the 2023 campaign was to make the first ten overs and the last five expensive to score in rather than to take clusters. His 6 for 19 remains among the better ODI returns by an Indian.

Both were in the side that lost the 2023 final at Ahmedabad after ten straight wins, and both were in the side that won the 2025 Champions Trophy. The 2023 World Cup page covers the campaign, and most ODI wickets for India places both totals.

Twenty20, where there is no comparison at all

Bumrah has 121 T20 international wickets at 18.08 from 95 matches. Shami has 27 at 28.18 from 25.

That is not a difference in quality so much as a difference in how each was used. Bumrah is one of the small number of bowlers in the format's history who can be relied on for four overs at any stage of an innings, and India has picked him in every T20 international it could. Shami has been a Test and ODI selection who occasionally played T20s, and his method — an upright seam looking for movement — is less directly transferable to a format where the batter is attacking regardless of what the ball does.

Bumrah's T20 international work is more usefully compared with the yorker specialists of the format than with Shami. The T20 international history guide covers India's development in the format, and best T20I bowling average sets his 18.08 against the national field.

The IPL, and the economy gap

The franchise records repeat the international pattern in compressed form. Bumrah has 181 wickets from 142 matches at 22.78 with an economy of 7.32; Shami has 145 from 132 at 8.67.

An economy gap of 1.35 across a career of that length is enormous in T20 terms — roughly five and a half runs an innings across four overs, sustained over more than a decade. Bumrah's total of 181 is the joint-highest by a Mumbai Indians bowler, level with Lasith Malinga, and his 5 for 10 against Kolkata in 2022 is among the competition's better returns.

Shami's league career has been spread across five franchises, and he won the Purple Cap in 2023 with 28 wickets, playing for Gujarat Titans — an achievement Bumrah does not have. The IPL most wickets list places both, and best IPL economy rate is where the difference between them is starkest.

Two different bowling problems

The methods are not variations on a theme. They set batters unrelated problems.

Bumrah's is the action — a short run, a hyperextended arm and a release point closer to the batter than the length suggests, which compresses reaction time and makes his length hard to read from the hand. Add a yorker he can land on demand and the result is a bowler who is difficult in every phase of every format, which is why he is the only bowler to have topped all three ICC rankings.

Shami's is the seam. He holds the ball upright at high pace and lets the pitch do the rest, which makes him unusually effective with an old ball on a surface that has stopped offering anything to anyone else. In the middle overs of a Test on the fourth day, that is worth more than the wicket columns show.

The pairing worked because a captain with both had an answer to the new ball, the old ball and the death, and the fast bowling evolution guide traces how India got to the point of having two such bowlers at once.

Injury, which is central to both careers

Neither record can be read without it.

Bumrah has missed extended periods with back stress injuries, including a stretch of more than a year across 2022 and 2023, and his workload has since been managed explicitly — series where he plays three Tests of five, formats he sits out. His 52 Tests in a career that began in 2018 are a low total for a bowler of his standing, and it is the direct cost of that management.

Shami's ankle injury after the 2023 World Cup was longer and had a different effect: by the time he was fit, India's Test attack had moved on. The counterfactual careers for both men are considerably larger than the actual ones, and the sensible thing is to note that and not to speculate about the numbers.

The verdict

• Test average, five-wicket hauls, wickets per match: Bumrah, decisively on all three.
• Test wickets in total: Bumrah, by five, from twelve fewer matches.
• First-class wickets and ten-wicket matches: Shami.
• ODI wickets and five-wicket hauls: Shami. ODI average: level.
• World Cup wickets, best knockout figures, leading wicket-taker in an edition: Shami.
• T20 international wickets and average: Bumrah, overwhelmingly.
• IPL wickets and economy: Bumrah. Purple Cap: Shami.
• Bowler you would give the ball to defending twelve off the last over: Bumrah.
• Bowler you would give the ball to with a thirty-over-old ball and a flat pitch: Shami.

The summary is that Bumrah has the better career and Shami has the better tournament, and that anyone choosing between them for a single match should be asking which phase of it they need bowled. Complete records are on the Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami pages, the player directory covers the rest of the attack, and the cricket in India hub places both in the wider account.

Sources and method

Both careers remain open in at least one format. The Test and international rows are quoted from each player's career record as revised in 2026, Shami's to 12 February 2026, and the totals will move if either plays again.

Several Bumrah claims are attributed rather than computed. That he reached 200 Test wickets in his 44th match, at an average below 20, as the first bowler in Test history to do so, and the first to concede under 4,000 runs across his first 200, comes from the report of that milestone. His 32 wickets in the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy as the most by an Indian in an overseas series, his 2024 Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy, and his being the first bowler ranked number one by the ICC in all three formats are published records.

The Shami World Cup claims are likewise attributed: 24 wickets in seven matches at 10.70 in 2023, 7 for 57 in the semi-final as the best figures in a World Cup knockout, and his standing as India's leading World Cup wicket-taker are tournament records rather than calculations made here. The 2023 Purple Cap with 28 wickets is a published season figure.

IPL wickets and economy rates are computed from ball-by-ball data covering the competition from 2008 to the 2026 final. A wicket is credited to the bowler only for bowled, caught, caught and bowled, lbw, stumped and hit wicket, so run-outs are excluded and these totals may differ slightly from lists counting every dismissal.

The account of the two bowling actions and what each method is worth in which phase is descriptive. No average has been adjusted for era, opposition or conditions, and the injury counterfactuals in the penultimate section are deliberately left unquantified.