MELBOURNE: Spinner Ravichandran Ashwin on Sunday became India’s leading wicket-taker in the history of the ICC T20 World Cup event.
The veteran spinner accomplished this feat during his side’s final Super 12 stage match against Zimbabwe on Sunday in Melbourne.
In the match, Ashwin emerged as India’s best bowler, taking 3 wickets for 22 runs in four overs. His efforts were extremely important in ensuring that India wins the match by 71 runs.
In the 2022 edition of the tournament so far, Ashwin has scalped 6 wickets.
With this, Ashwin’s all-time tally in ICC T20 World Cup has gone up to 32 wickets in 23 matches at an average of 16.40 and an economy rate of 6.32 and best bowling figures of 4/11.
Ravindra Jadeja, India’s star all-rounder is the only other Indian among the highest wicket-takers with a total of 21 scalps in the tournament’s history.
Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib al Hasan 47 wickets is all-time highest wicket-taker in T20 World Cup history. He is followed by Shahid Afridi of Pakistan (39) and Sri Lanka’s Lasith Malinga (38), Pakistan’s Saeed Ajmal (36) and Sri Lanka’s Ajantha Mendis (35) in the list of highest wicket-takers.
Coming to India’s match against Zimbabwe, Men in Blue posted 186/5 in their 20 overs after opting to bat first.
K L Rahul (51) and Virat Kohli (26) put a 60 run stand for the second wicket, but Sean Williams (2/9) squeezed some momentum out of their innings. However, Suryakumar Yadav (61*) made sure things finished well for Men in Blue.
Sean Williams (2/9) was the pick of the bowlers for Zimbabwe. Raza, Muzarbani and Ngarava took a wicket each.
Chasing 187, Zimbabwe never really looked like a threat. Except for a 60-run stand for the sixth wicket between Raza (34) and Ryan Burl (35), Indian bowlers had all the control. Zimbabwe was bundled out for 115 runs in 17.2 overs and lost the match by 71 runs.
Spinner Ravichandran Ashwin (3/22) was the pick of the bowlers for India. Pacers Mohammad Shami and Hardik Pandya got two wickets each. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh and Axar Patel got one wicket each.
Suryakumar Yadav was adjudged as ‘Man of the Match’ for his fine half-century.
Brief Scores: India 186/5: (Suryakumar Yadav 61*, KL Rahul 51, Sean Williams 2/9) vs Zimbabwe 115 (Ryan Burl 35, Sikandar Raza 34; Ravichandran Ashwin 3-22). (ANI)