We are back with yet another Best Performances articles and this one is about one of my favorite fast bowlers that India has seen in the last 15 years and it is very unfortunate what happened in 2013 during the IPL and his international career was derailed and he has to claw back in the game and now he is playing the legends league and doing well again and it is nice seeing him bowl again. We are talking about Sreesanth who was one of the best of his time. We will talk about his records below.
He played international cricket from 2005-2011 and he was a 2 time World Cup winner In his career. He played 27 Test Matches and he took 87 wickets in test cricket at an average of 37.60 with 3 Five wicket hauls in his career. He also played 53 ODIs and took 75 wickets at an average of 33.44 and he took 3 Four wicket hauls and 1 Five wicket haul. He also played 10 T20Is including the 2007 World Cup where he was the star. He took 7 wickets in his career. Let’s look at his Top 5 Best Performances.
5/40 and 3/59 vs South Africa (2006)
This was his first 5 wicket haul in test cricket and he got a total of 8 wickets in the match. In the first batting innings for South Africa Sreesanth was in rampaging form as he destroyed the great batting line-up and in just 10 overs and giving away 40 runs he got 5 Wickets and South Africa were bowled out for only 84. Then in the all important 4th innings he again stepped up for India as he took 3 wickets this time in 25 overa of fast bowling and gave away 59 runs and due to his brilliance India won this match by 123 runs.
Also Read | Top 5 Best bowling performances of Javagal Srinath
5/75 vs Sri Lanka (2009)
This was the second 5 wicket haul for Sreesanth in test cricket and it came against Sri Lanka in 2009 and yet again India won the match. It was In the first batting innings for Sri Lanka and he was yet again in peak form as he took wickets at regular intervals and never allowed the greatest Sri Lankan batting order to settle. In 22 overs that he bowled he gave away 75 Runs and got 5 Wickets. This was an exceptional spell of fast bowling and India won the match by an innings and 144 runs.
Also Read | Top 5 Best bowling performances of Venkatesh Prasad
5/114 vs South Africa (2011)
This was the third 5 wicket haul for Sreesanth in test cricket and it would be his last . In this match he was yet again the bowler that looked like taking wickets. In the first innings he bowled 29 overs and he gave away 114 Runs but more importantly he took 5 wickets and that did not allow South Africa to take away the match. The match was a draw in the end and Sreesanth kept his record intact that India never lost a test match in which he took 5 wickets or more in an innings. Wish he could have played more test cricket.
Also Read | Top 5 Best Performances of Jasprit Bumrah
6/55 vs England (2006)
This is the best bowling performance in the career of Sreesanth in an innings and it came in this ODI against England. England were batting first and they got to a good total but it could have been so much more had Sreesanth not taken these 6 Wickets and pulled England back to 288. He bowled 10 overs for 55 runs and got 6 very important wickets and that allowed India to chase 289 down with 7 wickets remaining. Yet again a great performance by Sreesanth resulted in an India win.
Also Read | Top 5 Best Performances of Mohammed Shami
2/12 vs Australia (2007)
Possibly the most important bowling performance in the career of Sreesanth and it was not a 5 wicket haul but in a T20I match where the other bowlers were going for so many runs he gave only 2/12 in 4 overs. This was the semi final of the 2007 T20I World Cup and this was the performance where he took 2 of the most important wickets In the match and gave away only 12 runs at 3 runs per over in a 20 overs match. This performance put Sreesanth in a different league and he was celebrated.
