Bowlers going away for runs is quite a regular affair in T20I cricket. After all, the batters ride on favourable conditions, from flatter pitches to shorter boundaries.
But a few bowlers have changed the picture completely. They terrorised batters with their top-notch bowling skills to return with heaps of wickets in a bilateral series.
So here are the top 10 bowlers with the most wickets in a bilateral T20I series.
Most Wickets in a Bilateral T20I Series
| Player | Team | Wickets | Innings | Series |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jason Holder | West Indies | 15 | 5 | West Indies vs England, 2022 |
| Sami Sohail | Malawi | 14 | 7 | Malawi vs Mozambique, 2019 |
| Varun Chakravarthy | India | 14 | 5 | India vs England, 2025 |
| Ish Sodhi | New Zealand | 13 | 5 | New Zealand vs Australia, 2021 |
| Charles Hinze | Japan | 13 | 5 | Japan vs Mongolia, 2024 |
| Hayden Walsh | West Indies | 12 | 5 | West Indies vs Australia, 2021 |
| Samuel Conteh | Sierra Leone | 12 | 6 | Nigeria vs Sierra Leone, 2021 |
| Joao Hou | Mozambique | 12 | 6 | Mozambique vs Eswatini, 2022 |
| Sandeep Lamichhane | Nepal | 12 | 5 | Kenya vs Nepal, 2022 |
| Pratik Singh Bais | Mexico | 12 | 5 | Costa Rica vs Mexico, 2024 |
Key Insights
15: Jason Holder has taken the most wickets in a bilateral T20I series. The tall Caribbean all-rounder returned with 15 wickets in a five-match series against England in early 2022.
12: Samuel Conteh’s 12 wickets are the most in a series defeat. He picked up those wickets for Sierra Leone against Nigeria in six T20Is in 2021. Sierra Leone started the series with a win but lost the next five games.
10: India’s Varun Chakravarthy is the only bowler to take 10 or more wickets in two bilateral T20I series. And he did so in succession against South Africa (12 wickets in four matches, 2024) and England. With that, Chakravarthy became the first bowler to take 10-plus scalps in consecutive T20I series.
4: There are four instances of two bowlers from the same team taking 10 or more wickets in the same series.
- Malawi’s Sami Sohail (11) and Moazzam Baig (14) against Mozambique in 2019.
- Nigeria’s Sylvester Okpe (11) and Peter Aho (10) against Sierra Leone in 2021.
- Mozambique’s Joao Huo (12) and Jose Bulele (11) against Eswatini in 2022.
- Japan’s Charles Hinze (13) and Kazuma Kato-Stafford (11) against Mongolia in 2024.
2: Alongside grabbing 13 scalps against Mongolia, Hinze returned with the best average (2.38) and economy (2.26) in a bilateral T20I series. His strike rate (6.3) is only bettered by Sweden’s Hassan Mehmood, who picked up 10 scalps at a strike rate of 6 in three games against Denmark in 2021.
75: There are more than 75 instances of bowlers taking a five-wicket haul in a bilateral T20I series. Imran Tahir, Rashid Khan, Ashton Agar, Shakib Al Hasan, Tim Southee, Kuldeep Yadav, and Chakravarthy have taken fifers in multiple series. Interestingly, Chakravarthy’s fifers against South Africa (5/17) and England (5/24) ended up in losing causes.
9: As many as nine bowlers have taken two hauls of four or more wickets in a two-team T20I series.
