5 most prolific T20I bowlers in 2017
The past year proved to be a splendid exhibition of the shortest format of the game with multiple records being broken throughout 2017. David Miller smashed his way to a 35-ball hundred against Bangladesh in October, but the record was equaled in just two months time as Rohit Sharma smoked his way to a century against Sri Lanka.
While the bowlers were being carted all over the park, they were also given the hard task to derailing the opposition's innings with some quality bowling. While some bowlers did not have the best of calendar years, here are five bowlers who enjoyed a good year of T20I cricket and finished as the five highest wicket-takers in 2017.
#5 Shadab Khan - 14 wickets
The Pakistani leg-spinner has impressed immensely with his skill set that is structured around a traditional leg-break, a troublesome quicker one and a cunning googly, a combination of which bamboozled the best of batsmen through the year.
Shadab started off in fine fashion, clinching the Man of the Match award in his first two games of the year with figures of 4-0-7-3 and 4-1-14-4 against the West Indies. The leg-spinner added three more scalps and finished with ten wickets in the series to kick-start a great year for himself.
In Pakistan's subsequent series win against World XI, Shadab ended up with two wickets from three matches and was lauded for his quality spin bowling.
In what turned out to be Pakistan's last T20 series of the year, Shadab picked a wicket apiece in the first two T20s against Sri Lanka, in a year that also saw him finishing fifth on the bowlers' charts for most wickets in 2017.