ICC Champions Trophy: Top 5 wicket-takers in the history of the competition

#3 Lasith Malinga

The death over specialist for Sri Lanka

The yorker king of world cricket has been the bowling spearhead of the Sri Lankan team for many years. An unusual action and a variety of options under his sleeve, Lasith Malinga is the most experienced bowler all around the world in the back end of the innings.

The veteran bowler is in the twilight of his career and will surely want to leave a long lasting impression, in what could be his last appearance in the Champions Trophy. Despite being plagued by injuries throughout his career, the side-arm bowler can take a lot of confidence from his performance with the Mumbai Indians in the recently concluded Indian Premier League.

The 33-year-old has enjoyed a lot of success in this prestigious tournament as he scalped 22 wickets in the 13 matches with his best figures of four wickets for 34 runs. Malinga has featured in the last three editions of the tournament with the 2006 season being the most successful outing for him as he scalped 11 wickets in six matches.

In subsequent two editions, he picked up four wickets in three matches and seven wickets in four league matches.

The last edition of the tournament did not go as per plan for the Sri Lanka team as they lost to India in the semi-finals. After being put into bat, the batting unit managed a below-par score of 181 runs in the first innings. In reply, the strong batting line-up of the Indian team lead by Shikhar Dhawan’s half century, chased down the target with eight wickets to spare.