Ravi Bishnoi is not everybody's favourite. With a fast, whippy action and a stock ball that comes back in to the right-hander despite him being a leg-spinner, Bishnoi is not conventional in any sense of the word. But he is just right for a format like T20, where novel skills can prove to be rewarding. The 23-year-old from Jodhpur proved it yet again with a critical spell of 2/29 in the fifth and final T20I in Bengaluru to help India win the series against Australia with a 4-1 margin. (As It Happened | Scorecard | Cricket News)
Not only did Bishnoi's restrictive bowling tie the Aussies down through the series, the leggie also produced the key breakthroughs when the team needed them the most, and ended the tournament with nine wickets to deservingly be crowned the Player Of The Series.
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With his splendid performance, Bishnoi equalled ace India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin's record of most wickets in a bilateral T20I series. Ashwin had scalped nine wickets in a T20I series against Sri Lanka in 2016. While it took Ashwin six years after his T20I debut to create the record, Bishnoi needed just 10 months after his debut to equal it.
With his rich haul, Bishnoi created a record of his own on Sunday, December 3, 2023. The leg-spinner became India's first player to bag atleast one wicket in 10 consecutive T20 internationals. No other Indian bowler has gone this long without a wicket-less match. Before his heroics in the home series against australia, Bishnoi played a key role in India's gold medal-winning performance at the Asian Games 2023 in Hangzhou, where he picked five wickets in three matches.
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Bishnoi's consistent T20I performances have made him a strong contender for a spot in the full-strength India XIs that will play the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2024 in June next year. After the youngster's record-breaking feats on Sunday, the selectors and team management will find it hard to overlook the leggie.
