West Indian spin wizard Samuel Badree celebrates his 39th birthday today (March 8, 2020). The spinner is a specialist for the West Indies side in the shortest format of the game as he has played only in T20Is for them. Badree made his national debut on June 30, 2012, against New Zealand and has since represented his country 52 times taking 56 wickets in the process with an impressive bowling average of just over 21. On Samuel Badree’s birthday, we take a look at some of his best performances.

Born to an Indo-Trinidadian family in Barrackpore, Trinidad, Samuel Badree made his first-class debut for Trinidad and Tobacco national cricket team in January 2002 at just aged 20 against the Leeward Islands in 2001-02 Busta Cup. Since then, he has gone on to play in different teams across the world in various domestic leagues. He played in the Indian Premier League for KKR, CSK and RCB and has been a part of the Khulna Tigers team in BPL since 2017.

4/15 vs Bangladesh

One of Badree’s best performances in a West Indian jersey came against Bangladesh during the 2014 T20 World Cup in Dhaka. Riding on Dwayne Smith’s 78 the Caribbean side put on a score of 171/7 in their 20 overs. Badree did early damage to Bangladesh as he dismissed Tamim Iqbal in the third over if the game and then finished the game in middle overs as took three wickets in one over to take his side to a win.

3/10 vs Pakistan

Another top performance from Badree during the 2014 T20 World Cup as he led his side to a semi-final berth. West Indies scored 166/6 in their quota of 20 overs and then the bowler’s did all the damage. Badree dismissed Kamran Akmal in his very first over leaving Pakistan for ½ in the second over. He then got rid of Shoaib Malik and Umar Akmal and gave his side an upper-hand in the tie.

4/9 vs Mumbai Indians

This was Badree’s best performance in the Indian Premier League and it came playing for Virat Kohli-led Royal Challengers Bangalore. After being in the bench for the first three games of IPL 10 Badree took his chance by producing a spell of his lifetime. He dismissed Parthiv Patel, Rohit Sharma, Mitchell McClenaghan and Nitish Rana to finish with 4/9 but was unable to guide his side to a victory

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 09, 2020 09:00 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).