The King of Speed joins the 400 Club

Dale Steyn made his debut against England in 2004. 80 Tests and 16,634 deliveries later, he hit the 400 Test wickets mark. Rajneesh Gupta looks at the Speed King's career.

Dale Steyn took 400 wickets in Test cricket when he had Bangladesh's Tamim Iqbal caught at slip by Hashim Amla on the opening day of the Mirpur Test.

Steyn is the second South African after Shaun Pollock and only the 13th bowler in Test history to reach the cherished landmark.

The 13-member club had three Indians, two Australians, two West Indians, two South Africans and one each from Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Pakistan and England.

New Zealand's legendary Richard Hadlee was the first bowler to accomplish the feat, against India in February 1990.

His great Indian rival, that magnificent all-rounder Kapil Dev, joined him two years later, followed by the lanky West Indian pace genius Courtney Walsh (in 1999), arguably the greatest left-arm fast bowler ever Wasim Akram (in 2000), the amazing Curtly Ambrose (in 2000).

The greatest leg-spinner of all time, Shane Warne, became the first spinner (in 2001) to join the illustrious club.

Warnie was soon joined by another spinner, Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan in 2002.

'Pigeon' Glenn McGrath -- he of the lethal deliver in the corridor of uncertainty -- (in 2002), the fabulous Anil Kumble (in 2004), the consistent Shaun Pollock (in 2006) and the shrewd Harbhajan Singh (in 2011) are the most recent members of this august company.

The 400 Test wickets club now has nine pace bowlers (eight right-arm and one left-arm) and four spinners (two leg-spinners and two off-spinners).

Meet the 400 Club

Bowlers with 400 wickets in Test cricket

The 400 Club members with the number of wickets against each opponent:

Steyn is the joint second fastest to reach the landmark in terms of fewest Tests taken with Richard Hadlee -- both took 80 Tests to do so.

Only Muttiah Muralitharan reached the mark in fewer Tests.

Quickest to 400 wicket mark

(Least matches taken)

Steyn needed to bowl only 16,634 deliveries (legitimate) to reach this mark, which is the least among all 13 bowlers.

While it is not possible to ascertain the exact number of deliveries bowled by each bowler to reach the landmark, it is pretty much clear that no one else did so in fewer than 20,000 balls.

Richard Hadlee is a distant second taking anything between 20,317 and 20,450 balls.

Calculating the strike-rate for each bowler up to the end of innings in which the record was made will give us a fairly good idea about a bowler. Steyn is just phenomenal on that count.

He, in fact, is the only one in this exclusive club to take less than 50 balls for each wicket.

Quickest to reach 400 wicket mark in Tests

(Best strike-rate)

Figures calculated up to the end of an innings

Glenn McGrath is the quickest to the 400 wicket mark in terms of least days since making his Test debut. He did so in 3,266 days (under 9 years). At the other end of the scale Richard Hadlee took the longest -- just over 17 years!

Quickest to reach 400 wicket mark

(Least days from debut)

Three of the four spinners in the club are the youngest to reach the mark, with Muttiah Muralitharan on the top -- aged 29 years, 273 days.

Richard Hadlee -- the first bowler ever to reach the milestone -- remains the oldest.

Youngest to reach 400 wicket mark

All statistics updated till July 30, 2015.