Preview of the Asia Cup 2018

Hong Kong won the qualifying tournament, and will join the regular teams India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Afghanistan in cricket’s Asia Cup 2018

The odd thing is that Hong Kong is not a regular ODI team now, as it had lost its status in April 2018. They qualified ahead of Nepal and UAE who do have ODI status. (That is why the Nepal v UAE match was the only official ODI among the qualifying matches). The other matches had only List A status.

It is understood that Hong Kong will get ODI status for the Asia Cup matches. This temporary membership has happened before for various teams in the World Cup and Asia Cup.

For more details see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Day_International#Teams_with_ODI_status

For the Asia Cup matches, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Asia_Cup

The fine art of minnow-bashing

The term “minnow-bashing” was often heard in World Cup cricket matches where the non-regular teams often came to grief against the major teams.

Now the women’s T20I teams of India and Pakistan have shown that they are better at minnow-bashing than their male counterparts. The occasions came in the course of  the ongoing Asia Cup which is a T20I tournament in Malaysia. As we will see, the Malaysian team have been very gracious hosts.

The 6 participating teams are India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Thailand and Malaysia. As the last 2 are not regular teams, their matches are not counted in women’s T20I records.

India started the process by dismissing Malaysia for 27 and thus winning by 142 runs:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/1148042/scorecard/1148048/malaysia-women-vs-india-women-1st-match-womens-twenty20-asia-cup-2018/

Pakistan did almost as well, dismissing the hosts for 30 and winning by 147 runs.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/1148042/scorecard/1148058/malaysia-women-vs-pakistan-women-11th-match-womens-twenty20-asia-cup-2018/

Thailand has also done quite badly, without ever crossing 100. But they did beat Malaysia by 9 wickets:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/1148042/scorecard/1148055/malaysia-women-vs-thailand-women-8th-match-womens-twenty20-asia-cup-2018/

The league matches continue on June 9, which features Ind v Pak, SL v Th and BD vs Ma.

The final on June 10 will probably be between India and Pakistan.

Summary of the 2016 Asia Cup

Though the Asia Cup is considered a small sideshow in the cricket calendar, it has been held sporadically since 1984. India won that first tournament in 1984 and now has a total of 6 titles, including 2016 which was held in the 20-over format for the first time. It is expected that it will be held in this format whenever it is held in the same year as the World T20 Championship.

For the full history see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_Cup

The leading individual performances are given below:

Most Runs (80 and above)

Somewhat ironically the most runs were scored by a batsman from Hong Kong which played only in 3 matches in the first round. From the “main” teams Sabbir Rahman scored the most runs (176) and  was named the “Man of the Tournament”. Babar Hayat and LD Chandimal were the only ones to cross 50 twice.

Highest Individual Scores (50 and above)

RG Sharma made the highest score (83) among the main teams, followed by Sabbir Rahman with 80.

Bowling: 4 or more wickets overall

Among players from the main teams, the lesser-known Al-Amin Hossain took the most wickets (11) followed by Kulasekara, Mohammed Amir and Pandya with 7 apiece.

Best innings bowling: 3 or more wickets

Malinga’s 4-26 is the best performance for the main teams. Unfortuately for Sri Lanka that was the only match he played. The next best is 3-8 by Pandya. Al-Amin Hossain was consistent with three 3-wicket hauls.

Most dismissals (3 and above)

Not surprisingly, Dhoni topped this list along with SP Patil of the UAE. Nurul Hasan had the most stumpings (3). The most catches by non-keepers were 6 by Babar Hayat and Soumya Sarkar.

Overall all-round performance (at least 40 runs and 4 wickets):

Useful contributions by Mahmudullah and Shakib, besides the trio from the UAE.

All-round match performances (at least 20 runs and 2 wickets)

Rohan Mustafa had the best all-round match performance,while Mahmudullah had the best performance among the main teams.

It is interesting to see that India won the tournament without any spectacular performances (except RG Sharma’s 83). The whole performed better than the sum of the parts, which is supposed to be the hallmark of a good team.