An important milestone for a bowler is taking a 5-wicket haul in an innings, irrespective of the format. However, a fifer in T20I cricket is a rarity since a bowler can bowl only 4 overs in the game, and picking 5 or more wickets in a spell is a tough ask. That is why a bowler picking 5 wickets or more in a T20I innings is a significant achievement and deserves a lot of adulation.
They not only have 24 balls to deliver but also have to overcome the ever-attacking batters in this format. So this article tells about the potent bowlers who have raised a 5-wicket most times in the shortest format of the game.
Most 5-Wicket Hauls in T20Is
Player | Team | Innings | 5-Wicket Hauls | Total Wickets |
---|---|---|---|---|
Moazzam Baig | Malawi | 38 | 3 | 62 |
Rizwan Butt | Bahrain | 46 | 3 | 72 |
Zaker Taqawi | Sweden | 16 | 2 | 29 |
Varun Chakravarthy | India | 18 | 2 | 33 |
Charlie Rumistrzewicz | Spain | 24 | 2 | 40 |
Hernan Fennell | Argentina | 28 | 2 | 50 |
Reo Sakurano-Thomas | Japan | 34 | 2 | 38 |
Dhruvkumar Maisuria | Botswana | 35 | 2 | 71 |
Aamir Kaleem | Oman | 36 | 2 | 40 |
Imran Tahir | South Africa | 38 | 2 | 63 |
Key Stats
163: The number of bowlers to take at least one 5-wicket haul in T20 international cricket. This is a heartening stat given that T20 is normally a batters format and most often, bowlers face tough times in this format.
Out of these 163, only 20 of them have taken it multiple times with Malawi’s Moazzam Baig and Bahrain’s Rizwan Butt being the only players to take a T20I fifer thrice.
Among the full-member teams, Ashton Agar of Australia, India’s Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar & Varun Chakravarthy, Sri Lanka’s Lasith Malinga & Ajantha Mendis, Bangladesh’s Mustafizur Rahman & Shakib Al Hasan, Rashid Khan of Afghanistan, Pakistan’s Umar Gul and Tim Southee of New Zealand have all picked two 5-wicket hauls in the T20I format.
Of the bowlers with multiple fifers in T20I cricket, the bowling average of Dhruvkumar Maisuria (9.46) of Botswana is the lowest followed by 10.38 by Moazzam Baig. When we talk about the Economy rate, Moazzam Baig comes first with a misery ER of 4.77 followed by Maisuria’s 5.33 in T20Is.
For the full-member teams, the lowest average belongs to Kuldeep Yadav (14.07), and Rashid Khan’s ER of 6.08 is the lowest.