India Women Most Wickets: International Records

Deepti Sharma has taken 359 international wickets for India, and Jhulan Goswami 355. That is the whole of the argument at the top of this leaderboard, and it depends entirely on adding the three formats together: Goswami leads the one-day column by 89, Deepti leads the Twenty20 column by 62, and the sums land four apart.

They are the only India women past 200. Neetu David is third on 182 from a career that ended in 2008, before India had played a Twenty20 international worth counting, and Poonam Yadav is fourth on 181 having never taken a Test wicket in more than one match.

The distribution below has one obvious feature. Of India's six leading international wicket-takers, five are spinners — and the sixth, Goswami, took her 355 bowling right-arm medium pace for twenty years in a side that mostly did not pick another seamer.

The all-format wicket count

Qualification: 150 or more international wickets. Nobody outside this group can reach 150 on their published format records.

Player	Span	Type	Test	ODI	T20I	Total
Deepti Sharma	2014-2026	Off-spin	25	166	168	359
Jhulan Goswami	2002-2022	Right-arm medium	44	255	56	355
Neetu David	1995-2008	Left-arm spin	41	141	0	182
Poonam Yadav	2013-2022	Leg-spin	3	80	98	181
Rajeshwari Gayakwad	2014-2024	Left-arm spin	11	99	61	171
Ekta Bisht	2011-2022	Left-arm spin	3	98	53	154

Below 150 the next group sits between roughly 110 and 145: Nooshin Al Khadeer, Shikha Pandey, Radha Yadav and Renuka Singh. Diana Edulji, whose Test and one-day careers finished before Twenty20 internationals existed, is on 109.

Deepti Sharma's total is the only one on the page built roughly evenly out of both white-ball formats — 166 and 168, from 124 and 149 matches. Goswami's is lopsided the other way: 255 of her 355 came in one-day cricket, and she bowled in 203 ODI innings to India's 345 matches in the format.

Neetu David's third place is the most compressed career here. She took 182 wickets from 107 international matches between 1995 and 2008, ten of them Tests and 97 one-day internationals, and her one-day average of 16.34 is the lowest of any India woman with 40 wickets or more.

One-day internationals: Jhulan Goswami's 255

Player	Span	Mat	Wkts	BBI	Ave	Econ	4w	5w
Jhulan Goswami	2002-2022	204	255	6/31	22.04	3.37	7	2
Deepti Sharma	2014-2026	124	166	6/20	27.69	4.45	3	4
Neetu David	1995-2008	97	141	5/20	16.34	2.82	4	2
Nooshin Al Khadeer	2002-2012	78	100	5/14	24.02	3.57	4	1
Rajeshwari Gayakwad	2014-2022	64	99	5/15	20.79	3.63	5	1
Ekta Bisht	2011-2022	63	98	5/8	21.83	3.77	1	2
Amita Sharma	2002-2014	116	87	4/16	32.52	3.73	1	0
Poonam Yadav	2013-2022	58	80	4/13	25.15	3.97	3	0
Shikha Pandey	2014-2021	55	75	4/18	21.92	3.99	0	0
Gouher Sultana	2008-2014	50	66	4/4	19.39	3.32	3	0
Rumeli Dhar	2003-2012	78	63	4/19	27.38	3.43	1	0
DM Marathe	1997-2005	59	60	4/1	20.83	2.79	1	0
Sneh Rana	2014-2026	45	59	5/43	31.30	4.92	2	1
Purnima Rau	1993-2000	33	50	4/26	16.88	3.25	0	0
Diana Edulji	1978-1993	34	46	4/12	16.84	2.37	0	0
Renuka Singh	2022-2026	29	42	5/29	27.57	4.92	4	1

Goswami's 255 is 89 clear and will stay that way for some years: Deepti Sharma is twelve years into her career and 89 short, at a rate of roughly fourteen one-day wickets a year. Goswami played 204 one-day internationals across twenty seasons and took a wicket every 39 balls.

The economy column separates the eras more sharply than the average column does. Edulji, DM Marathe, David and Rau all conceded under 3.30 an over; Renuka Singh and Sneh Rana, the two most recent entries, both concede 4.92. Nobody bowled better or worse — the format changed underneath them, and a 2026 one-day innings of 300 asks a different question of a bowler than a 1997 innings of 200.

Gouher Sultana's 4 for 4 is the most economical four-wicket return in the list, and DM Marathe's 4 for 1 the most economical of all. Both were spinners operating in the middle overs of low-scoring matches.

Twenty20 internationals: Deepti Sharma's 168

Player	Span	Mat	Wkts	BBI	Ave	Econ	SR
Deepti Sharma	2016-2026	149	168	5/10	19.93	6.35	18.8
Radha Yadav	2018-2026	91	106	4/23	19.04	6.65	17.1
Poonam Yadav	2013-2022	72	98	4/9	15.25	5.75	15.9
Renuka Singh	2021-2026	65	70	5/15	22.50	6.64	20.3
Rajeshwari Gayakwad	2014-2023	58	61	3/9	19.13	6.15	18.6
Pooja Vastrakar	2018-2024	72	58	4/13	21.41	6.39	20.1
Jhulan Goswami	2006-2018	68	56	5/11	21.94	5.45	24.1
Ekta Bisht	2011-2019	42	53	4/21	14.71	5.30	16.6
Anuja Patil	2012-2019	50	48	3/14	21.00	5.83	21.5
Arundhati Reddy	2018-2026	54	48	4/22	29.20	7.83	22.3
Shikha Pandey	2014-2023	62	43	3/14	26.16	6.49	24.1
N Shree Charani	2025-2026	25	42	4/12	16.23	7.26	13.4
Harmanpreet Kaur	2009-2026	202	32	4/23	24.84	6.27	23.7
Shreyanka Patil	2023-2026	24	29	3/19	19.55	6.98	16.7
Gouher Sultana	2008-2014	37	29	3/17	26.27	5.73	27.4

Deepti Sharma has bowled in 146 of the 149 Twenty20 internationals she has played, which is the real explanation for the 168. She has taken ten four-wicket hauls or better between the two white-ball formats and is the only India woman with two five-wicket returns in Twenty20 internationals.

Shree Charani's strike rate of 13.4 — a wicket every 13.4 balls — is the fastest in the table by a distance, from 42 wickets in 25 matches across a season and a half. Her economy rate of 7.26 is also the second-highest, which is the trade the modern powerplay-and-death spinner makes.

Poonam Yadav's average of 15.25 across 98 wickets is the outstanding career figure on the page. She bowled leg-spin into a format that had not yet worked out how to hit it, took a wicket every sixteen balls between 2013 and 2022, and conceded 5.75 an over doing it.

Harmanpreet Kaur's 32 in 202 matches is the entry that surprises people. She has bowled 126 overs in the format in seventeen years, fewer than four balls per match on average, and taken four wickets in an innings once.

Test wickets: Edulji, Kulkarni and a fifty-year list

Player	Span	Mat	Wkts	BBI	BBM	Ave	5w
Diana Edulji	1976-1991	20	63	6/64	6/64	25.77	1
Shubhangi Kulkarni	1976-1991	19	60	6/99	7/57	27.45	5
Jhulan Goswami	2002-2021	12	44	5/25	10/78	17.36	3
Neetu David	1995-2006	10	41	8/53	9/90	18.90	1
Sneh Rana	2021-2026	6	30	8/77	10/188	20.96	1
S Gupta	1984-1991	13	25	4/47	8/100	31.28	0
Deepti Sharma	2021-2026	7	25	5/7	9/39	19.00	1
Shantha Rangaswamy	1976-1991	16	21	4/42	6/114	31.61	0
S Chakraborty	1976-1984	11	19	5/25	7/70	22.10	1
Purnima Rau	1995-1999	5	15	5/24	7/98	21.26	1
Pooja Vastrakar	2021-2024	5	15	4/53	5/93	22.46	0
Nooshin Al Khadeer	2003-2006	5	14	3/30	4/74	26.64	0
Harmanpreet Kaur	2014-2026	8	12	5/44	9/85	15.41	1
Rajeshwari Gayakwad	2014-2024	5	11	4/54	5/80	33.54	0
S Dabir	1995-1995	4	10	4/36	5/63	13.60	0

Two bowlers dominate a list that covers half a century, and both played the same nineteen or twenty Tests in the same fifteen years. Edulji's 63 came at 1.91 an over across more than 5,000 balls; Kulkarni took 60 with five five-wicket hauls, more than any other India woman.

Jhulan Goswami's 44 from twelve Tests at 17.36, with the only ten-wicket match by an India woman other than Sneh Rana's, is the best Test return in the modern half of the table. Sneh Rana's 10 for 188 against South Africa at Chennai in June 2024 included 8 for 77, the second-best India women's Test innings return after Neetu David's 8 for 53 at Jamshedpur in 1995.

Harmanpreet Kaur has twelve Test wickets at 15.41 from eight matches, second only to S Dabir's 13.60 among India women with ten or more, and 32 Twenty20 wickets at 24.84 from 202. The same bowler, used almost exclusively in the format where she bowls least.

Spin has always done the work

Of the sixteen leading one-day wicket-takers, five are seamers: Goswami, Amita Sharma, Rumeli Dhar, Shikha Pandey and Renuka Singh. Of the fifteen leading Twenty20 wicket-takers, five are: Goswami, Renuka Singh, Pooja Vastrakar, Shikha Pandey and Arundhati Reddy. In Tests, four of the top five — Edulji, Kulkarni, David and Sneh Rana — bowl spin, and Goswami is again the exception.

That is a national pattern rather than a preference of any one captain, and it runs alongside the men's game: the spin bowling tradition page traces the same habits through India's domestic pitches. Left-arm spin in particular has produced three of India's six leading women's international wicket-takers — David, Gayakwad and Bisht — plus Radha Yadav and Shree Charani in the current side.

The seam bowling that does exist arrived late. Renuka Singh's 112 international wickets are the most by an India woman seamer other than Goswami, and she made her debut in 2021. The change in preparation behind that is described on the India women's cricket history page.

What the leaderboard hides

It hides opportunity above all else. Neetu David took 141 one-day wickets from 97 matches; India played only 108 one-day internationals during her career. Diana Edulji's Test and one-day totals come from 54 international matches across sixteen years, which is roughly a fifth of what a current India spinner plays in the same span.

It also hides the difference between bowling twelve overs and bowling four. Deepti Sharma's 168 Twenty20 wickets came in 527 overs, a wicket every 3.1 overs; Goswami's 255 one-day wickets came in 1,667 overs, one every 6.5. The short format concentrates a career into fewer deliveries and more of them count.

And it says nothing about how the wickets came. The ranked innings returns are on the India women best bowling figures page, the qualified career averages on the India women best bowling averages page, and the multi-wicket hauls on the India women most five-wicket hauls page. The batting these bowlers were defending is on the India women most centuries list, the competition that now develops them on the Women's Premier League guide, and the rest of the Indian game on the cricket in India hub.

Sources and method

Wicket totals, averages, economy rates, strike rates, best innings figures and career spans come from ESPNcricinfo's Statsguru career bowling records for India Women in women's Tests, women's one-day internationals and women's Twenty20 internationals, read on 27 August 2026. The most recent matches reflected are the Test against England at Lord's in July 2026 and the Twenty20 international against Pakistan at Birmingham in June 2026.

All-format totals are computed by me by addition. Statsguru publishes no combined women's international class, so each player's three format records were read separately, including the full Test list down to a single wicket — which is why Poonam Yadav and Ekta Bisht appear with three Test wickets each rather than none, and why the 150-wicket cut-off can be stated as complete rather than provisional.

Bowling types are descriptive, not from Statsguru: they are the styles these bowlers are consistently recorded as using. Where a bowler changed pace or role over a long career the single label is a simplification.

The comparison of wickets per over bowled between Deepti Sharma and Jhulan Goswami is my arithmetic on the published overs and wickets columns. Match totals used for context — 43 Tests, 345 one-day internationals, 225 Twenty20 internationals for India Women to August 2026 — come from the same source's team records.

Career figures move with every series. Where a bowler is still playing, the numbers here are a snapshot rather than a final total, and no figure has been rounded, adjusted or estimated.