Proteas pace bowler Shabnim Ismail has signed a new deal with the Sydney Thunder ahead of the upcoming Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL) season.

Ismail will return for her second season at the club after taking 10 wickets at an economy of 5.88 last year.

Ismail, who was recently named Cricket South Africa’s Women’s T20 International Cricketer of the Year, has played 1 Test, 98 ODIs and 92 T20Is for the Proteas women.

The 31-year-old acknowledged that despite the lockdown, she feels on top of her game “right now”.

“In the WBBL, you’re playing with a lot of experienced players and against some of the best in the world, so it’s a great challenge,” Ismail told the Sydney Thunder website.

“I’m a senior player for my country and in the Thunder squad as well so I try to lead by example. Having played for my country for 12 years, I enjoy passing on some of my experience and knowledge to the youngsters.

“We started last season really strongly and then obviously we slacked a bit, but I think the experience and the way we went about playing our game was really good. I thoroughly enjoyed it and hopefully we can get some more success this year.”

Sydney Thunder head coach Trevor Griffin said Ismail’s experience will be of huge benefit to the side.

“Shabnim was outstanding for us last season. She was our most economical bowler and her pace caused a lot of trouble for opposition batters,” Griffin said.

“She was a real competitor in the field too – some of the fielding that she did was just at another level.

“She’s the world’s third-ranked T20 bowler but one thing that I noticed about Shabnim last year is that she still wants to learn and she’s constantly looking at ways to get better.”

– Compiled by Sport24 staff.