South African player Shabnim Ismail has signed up again with Sydney Thunder for the upcoming season of the WBBL.
As Australian player Rene Farrell announced her retirement last season, it may be good for Sydney Thunder that Shabnim Ismail has signed up with the team again. Despite only picking 10 wickets in the WBBL last season, it is undeniable that her rate of 5.88 is definitely impressive. In fact, Ismail has also been hailed as Cricket South Africa’s T20I player of the year aside from the fact that she is ranked as the third T20 bowler in the world.
Talking about Ismail’s performance last season, Thunder coach Trevor Griffin says, ‘Shabnim was outstanding for us last season. 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'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’, he added.
In response, Ismail said, ‘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. 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.
To learn more about Sydney Thunder and the other teams of the WBBL, check out Betwala’s page about its male counterpart, the BBL.
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