5 Bowling records held by batsmen in professional cricket

4. Six wickets on debut in Twenty20 format

The Twenty20 format has witnessed a variety of records in a short span of 17 years. Some of those records were held by unusual names and few of them by players of opposite role i.e. specialist batsmen in bowling records. One such record is on the name of Michael Dighton, a former Australian cricketer. Dighton made his T20 debut in the 2006-07 edition of the KFC Australian T20.

He made his professional debut in 1997/98 itself but lacked big knocks. He did score 111 for his team Tasmania during the domestic T20 tournament which stood as the highest T20 individual score in Australia for five years. In his debut T20 game itself, Dighton picked up a 6-wicket haul as he recorded bowling figures of 6/25 in only three overs he bowled. He played against Queensland on his T20 debut which took place on New Year Day.

To top Dighton’s feat, Tasmania introduced him as the 7th bowler of the innings. He picked up three of the six wickets in his first over itself which was the 16th over of the innings and a couple more in the 20th over. Michael Dighton, till date, is the only player to claim a 6-wicket haul on Twenty20 debut. As many as 15 players after Dighton and four bowlers before him managed to take five wickets on T20 debut but none managed to take the record-breaking 6th wicket.