Best bowling figures in a T20 International (female)

Brazil’s Laura Cardoso re-wrote T20 International (T20I) history against Lesotho on 9 April 2026, taking nine wickets for four runs in three overs (3-2-4-9) in Botswana in the BCA Kalahari Women’s T20 International Tournament. The right-arm medium-fast bowler, playing her 48th T20I for Brazil, shot out Lesotho for just 13 runs almost single-handedly, claiming the first nine wickets – four bowled, four lbw and one caught – before teammate Marianne Artur completed the rout after just 6.2 overs, with Lesotho in pursuit of Brazil’s 202 for 8. Cardoso took a hat-trick with the last three balls of her first over, helped herself to wickets off the first, second, fourth and sixth balls of her second over, and completed her devastating spell with third- and fifth-ball scalps in a third and final over.

Four women – playing for the Netherlands, Argentina, Indonesia and Cyprus between 2021 and 2025 – had previously taken seven wickets in a T20I, but Cardoso was the first to take an eighth and ninth wicket in a single innings, and could have made it a clean sweep with one of her maximum four overs still in the locker, had Artur not weighed in with Lesotho’s 10th wicket. Furthermore, the 21-year-old all-rounder (b. 28 March 2005) became the first player, male or female, to take nine wickets in a T20I – or any senior T20 match. Cardoso eclipsed Sonam Yeshey’s 8 for 7 (4-1-7-8), for Bhutan against Myanmar during their men’s T20I series on 26 December 2025. Cardoso made the switch from volleyball to cricket at the age of 11 and came through a community cricket project called Crianca Feliz (“Happy Child”). She has been described as “one of the greatest cricketers Brazil has produced”, according to her teammate and Cricket Brasil president Roberta Avery. Cardoso’s cricketing idol is Australian all-rounder Ellyse Perry.