Shabnim Ismail signs a new deal with Syndey Thunder

South African pacer, Shabnam Ismail signed a new deal with Syndey Thunder for the upcoming edition of Women’s Big Bash League on Thursday. The experienced fast bowler will add more quality in the pace attack especially after the retirement of former Aussie quickie Rene Ferell.

Ismail picked 10 wickets in the 2019 editions of Big Bash League with an economy rate of 5.88 falling behind Megan Schutt who had a bowling average of 5.60 among bowlers who picked 10 wickets or more.

“Shabnim was outstanding for us last season,” Thunder coach Trevor Griffin said. She was our most economical bowler and her pace caused a lot of trouble for opposition batters.She was a real competitor in the field too – some of the fielding that she did was just at another level.”

She is third-ranked T20 Bowler in the world and recently received an award of Cricket South Africa’s T20I player of the year.

“She’s the world’s third-ranked T20 bowler but one thing that I noticed about Shabnim last year is that she still wants to learn and she’s constantly looking at ways to get better,” Griffin added.

Ismail debuted for South Africa in 2007 when she was only 17-year old and since then there has been no looking back, becoming a regular member of South African Lineup. Her addition to the thunder squad will give them an enormous amount of experience that youngsters can learn from her so that they can utilize those tactics on the matchday.

“In the WBBL, you’re playing with a lot of experienced players and against some of the best in the world, so it’s a great challenge,” Ismail said.

“I’m a senior player for my country and in the Thunder squad as well so I try to lead by example“.

“Having played for my country for 12 years, I enjoy passing on some of my experience and knowledge to the youngsters. We started last season really strongly and then obviously we slacked a bit, but I think the experience and the way we went about playing our game was really good.” She added.

She is also South Africa’s all-time leading wicket-taker in ODI and T20 format with 136 and 99 wickets respectively. She will be certainly an asset to Sydney Thunder’s franchise in the upcoming edition of Women’s Big Bash League 2020.