They thought it might be a good day when Jos Buttler smashed Kuldeep Yadav’s first ball for four, but the bowler had a surprise in store for England.
Kuldeep was brought into the attack for the 10th over with England on 72-1, going at 8.00 to the over and with dangerman Buttler in fine form on 37 off 21 balls.
His first ball was dismissed for four by Buttler and much later the second last ball of his fourth over was smashed for six, followed by a single off his final delivery. Sounds like a match made in batting Nirvana, but in between, Kuldeep ripped the heart out of the England batting to help restrict them to 159-8 off their 20 overs.
If you ignore his first delivery and his last balls, you’ll see the sensational figures of five wickets in 21 balls for just 13 runs, although the final analysis shows the still incredible figures of 4-0-24-5 (economy 6.00), with 14 dot balls – a mighty fine bowling performance. Also notable were the first-ball dismissals of Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root off consecutive deliveries – both stumped thanks to nimble work from keeper MS Dhoni.
To put the cherry on the top of his five-for, they were all top-order England batsmen. Well bowled, sir!
Kuldeep Yadav’s five-for vs England
- AD Hales b Kuldeep Yadav 8 (18b 0x4 0x6) SR: 44.44
- EJG Morgan c Kohli b Kuldeep Yadav 7 (6b 0x4 0x6) SR: 116.66
- JM Bairstow st †Dhoni b Kuldeep Yadav 0 (1b 0x4 0x6) SR: 0.00
- JE Root st †Dhoni b Kuldeep Yadav 0 (1b 0x4 0x6) SR: 0.0
- JC Buttler c Kohli b Kuldeep Yadav 69 (46b 8×4 2×6) SR: 150.00
Surprisingly, this was only the 20th best bowling figures in T20I history but I doubt that ‘low’ ranking will take the gloss off a quite incredible spell of bowling.
Best bowling figures in T20I
| Player | O | M | R | W | Econ | Team | Opposition |
| BAW Mendis | 4 | 2 | 8 | 6 | 2.00 | Sri Lanka | v Zimbabwe |
| BAW Mendis | 4 | 1 | 16 | 6 | 4.00 | Sri Lanka | v Australia |
| YS Chahal | 4 | 0 | 25 | 6 | 6.25 | India | v England |
| HMRKB Herath | 3.3 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 0.85 | Sri Lanka | v New Zealand |
| Rashid Khan | 2 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 1.50 | Afghanistan | v Ireland |
| Umar Gul | 3 | 0 | 6 | 5 | 2.00 | Pakistan | v New Zealand |
| Umar Gul | 2.2 | 0 | 6 | 5 | 2.57 | Pakistan | v South Africa |
| Elias Sunny | 4 | 1 | 13 | 5 | 3.25 | Bangladesh | v Ireland |
| Samiullah Shenwari | 4 | 0 | 13 | 5 | 3.25 | Afghanistan | v Kenya |
| Imad Wasim | 4 | 0 | 14 | 5 | 3.50 | Pakistan | v West Indies |
| TG Southee | 4 | 1 | 18 | 5 | 4.50 | New Zealand | v Pakistan |
| R McLaren | 3.5 | 0 | 19 | 5 | 4.95 | South Africa | v West Indies |
| Ahsan Malik | 4 | 0 | 19 | 5 | 4.75 | Netherlands | v South Africa |
| NN Odhiambo | 4 | 0 | 20 | 5 | 5.00 | Kenya | v Scotland |
| Mustafizur Rahman | 4 | 0 | 22 | 5 | 5.50 | Bangladesh | v New Zealand |
| D Wiese | 4 | 0 | 23 | 5 | 5.75 | South Africa | v West Indies |
| AC Evans | 4 | 0 | 24 | 5 | 6.00 | Scotland | v Netherlands |
| Imran Tahir | 3.5 | 0 | 24 | 5 | 6.26 | South Africa | v New Zealand |
| B Kumar | 4 | 0 | 24 | 5 | 6.00 | India | v South Africa |
| Kuldeep Yadav | 4 | 0 | 24 | 5 | 6.00 | India | v England |
