Bhutan’s 22-year-old left-arm spinner Sonam Yeshey produced something the format had never seen. His remarkable 8 for 7, delivered in four almost faultless overs, hurried Myanmar out for 45 in the third men’s T20I at Gelephu on Friday. Bhutan had earlier grafted to 127 for 9 – enough, as it turned out, by a distance. The hosts now lead the five-match series 3-0 with two to play.
“I just tried to keep it simple. Bowl straight, hit the pitch, trust the field,” Yeshey told Bhutan Cricket’s streaming crew minutes after the win. He looked genuinely stunned, adding, “Eight wickets… I never dreamt of that.”
Head coach Damber Gurung was quick to share the credit. “He’s been working on his control for months. The reward is showing now,” Gurung said.
Before Friday no bowler, male or female, international or domestic, had managed eight wickets in a T20. The previous best in men’s T20Is was seven: Syazrul Idrus’ 7 for 8 for Malaysia against China in 2023 and Ali Dawood’s 7 for 19 for Bahrain against Bhutan earlier this year. Even franchise cricket has seen only two seven-fors – Colin Ackermann for Leicestershire in 2019 and Taskin Ahmed in Bangladesh’s domestic league last month.
Statistician Daniel Norcross summed up the scale of the effort. “An eight-for in a 20-over innings is almost absurd. Bowlers get four overs, a maximum of 24 balls – so he’s struck every three deliveries on average,” he said on the ICC’s associate broadcast.
For context on the women’s side, Indonesia’s Rohmalia holds the best T20I figures with 7 for 0 against Mongolia in 2024. That mark, too, felt untouchable until today’s game nudged the bar higher.
Yeshey’s international numbers had been solid rather than spectacular: 29 wickets from 33 outings before this match. His debut came in Kuala Lumpur in July 2022, a tidy 3 for 16. Since then wickets have been harder to come by, partly because he often bowls in the powerplay. “We like using him early; he’s brave enough to toss it up,” captain Ngawang Thinley explained.
With 12 wickets already in this series, Yeshey is eyeing more in Monday’s finale. Still, he sounded wary of reading too much into the record. “It’s one game. The challenge is to back it up,” he said, perhaps already thinking of next spring’s Asian sub-regional qualifier.
Myanmar, meanwhile, will need a quick regroup. Skipper Htet Lin lamented loose strokes rather than the surface. “Credit to Sonam, but we gifted him a few,” he admitted.
Records may fall, form may dip, yet for a brief Friday afternoon in Gelephu, an eight-for in T20 cricket belonged solely to Sonam Yeshey and Bhutan.
