Christchurch, 24 October

Left-arm pacer Arshdeep Singh on Saturday surpassed Bhuvneshwar Kumar's India record of capturing highest number of T20I wickets in a single calender year after finishing with 2 for 33 in the second game against New Zealand.

Arshdeep's current tally for 2026 stands at 38, one more than Bhuvneshwar's 37 scalps in the year 2022. Incidentally, that was also the year when the veteran Meerut pacer was dropped from the national team.

Arshdeep completed this milestone in 26 innings compared to Bhuvneshwar's 31.

With three more matches left in the series, Arshdeep needs two more wickets to become the highest T20I wicket-taker in the world in a single calender year, eclipsing Ireland's Joshua Little, who took 39 in 2022. For the context, Little's most of the scalps were against Associate Nations.

The 27-year-old, who primarily is a one-format bowler, had also taken 30 plus wickets on couple of previous occasions. In 2022, Arshdeep had taken 33 wickets while he took another 36 in 2024.