South Africa’s left-arm leg spinner Tabraiz Shamsi has broken the record for most wickets in a calendar year in T20Is during his team’s third game of the ongoing T20 World Cup, against Sri Lanka in Sharjah on Saturday. Shamsi surpassed Uganda’s Dinesh Nakrani (2021) and Australia’s Andrew Tye (2018) who took 31 wickets in a calendar year. The leg-spinner now has 32 wickets to his name in 2021 and he is also the world number 1 bowler in the T20I rankings.

In the list of most wickets in T20Is in 2021, Shamsi is the only bowler who is playing the T20 World Cup 2021 and has more than 30 wickets to his name. Sri Lanka’s Wanindu Hasaranga got 29 wickets this year while Bangladesh left-arm pacer Mustafizur Rahman picked 26 wickets in 2021.

Shamsi picked three wickets against Sri Lanka and gave away just 17 runs in four overs that helped South Africa to take early command in the match. The 31-year-old dismissed Banuka Rajapaksa, Avishka Fernando, and Wanindu Hasanranga in the middle overs. The trio has been effective for the 2014 champions with their performances in this year’s tournament.

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Sri Lanka got bundled out for 142 runs with superb bowling spells from Shamsi (3/17), Dawaine Pretorius (3/17) and Anrich Nortje (2/27). Pathum Nissanka top-scored for Sri Lanka with his 72-run knock with the help of six fours and three sixes.

After making his debut in 2017, Shamsi has played 45 T20Is for South Africa and picked 53 wickets with best figures of 4/25 that came against Pakistan earlier this year.