Ismail retires from international game as a true cricket great

Shabnim Ismail brought the curtain down on an international career that was part fun, part fierce and full-time elite. 

Ismail, who turns 35 later this year, announced on Wednesday that she would be forgoing the international game to spend more time with family and that future commitments to cricket would be based around participation in T20 Leagues that dot the cricket calendar. 

She retires as a true great of the women’s game who, for much of her 16-year international career, was one of the fastest bowlers in the sport.

“As any athlete knows, training and competing at your best requires much sacrifice and dedication and I now find myself wanting to spend more time with my family, particularly my siblings and parents as they get older,” Ismail said.

“They have always been my biggest support and I want to be able to be there for them in the way they have been there for me over the past 16 years. I really believe that reducing the amount of cricket I play will enable me to do this, and playing in global leagues is the only way I see to be able to fit in both family and cricket.”

Ismail has been contracted to all three of the major women’s franchise leagues in the last three years, including The Hundred in England, the Big Bash in Australia and earlier this year the Women’s Premier League, where she earned a R2m deal.

It wasn’t as if age slowed her down as evidenced by her match-changing over in the semifinal win against England in the T20 World Cup in February, where she bowled around the 120km/h mark and picked up two wickets in the process. 

Ismail made her debut for the Proteas against Pakistan in 2007 as an 18-year-old, at a time when women cricketers weren’t getting paid. She worked as a speed-point technician after school, while playing international cricket and her prowess, along with a handful of others, was instrumental in creating the environment in which professional contracts were given to the country’s female players in 2014. 

She played 241 matches for the Proteas across the three formats, just one of those being a Test and finished her career with 191 ODI wickets, leaving her second behind Indian legend Jhulan Goswami who has 255. Her 123 T20 international wickets puts her fourth on the all time list, just three behind Pakistan’s Nida Dar. 

“As I look back on my international career, I am so grateful for all the opportunities and experiences I have had. I have loved being able to compete at the highest level and I am so proud of being able to be part of a wonderful group of players who have led the way for women in cricket.”

Born and raised in Cravenby, a suburb north of Cape Town, she played street cricket with Beuran Hendricks and Vernon Philander. That’s where her competitive fire was first noted and the fierceness she displayed back then, was carried through into the international arena. 

Ismail formed one of the most devastating new ball partnerships with Marizanne Kapp, and it was on their shoulders that the Proteas have been elevated into the top echelons of the women’s game, making the semifinals in 50-over World Cups in 2017 and 2022 and then in the T20 world tournaments in 2020 and 2023, the latter culminating in that memorable run to the final, where they lost to Australia at Newlands. 

“Shabnim has transcended women’s cricket as a fierce competitor with the ability of making any batter uncomfortable at the crease with her rapid pace that regularly surpassed 120km/h throughout her career,” said director of cricket, Enoch Nkwe.

Ismail’s retirement continues the break up of the generation which put women’s cricket on the map in SA. In the past 12 months, Lizelle Lee, Trisha Chetty, Mignon du Preez, Dane van Niekerk and now Ismail have all left the international stage. 

“Today we bid farewell to a true icon of not only women’s cricket but the game in general during an international career that spanned more than 16 years as she led the line with ball in hand and rose to become one of SA’s most lethal bowlers, taking the most wickets in ODI and T20I cricket for her nation,” said Cricket SA’s CEO, Pholetsi Moseki.

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