Analysis of the Asia T-20I Cup, 2022

Sri Lanka won the championship winning against Pakistan in the final.

The third and fourth places were taken by India and Afghanistan respectively.

Bangladesh and Hong Kong made up the final 6.

All the figures given below are for the matches starting from August 27, which include the 6 teams mentioned above but not the preliminary round in which Singapore, Kuwait and the UAE participated.

Team performances:

Batting: 100 or more runs:

M Rizwan has the most runs (281) closely followed by Kohli with 276.

Kohli was the only one to score a century in this tournament (which was his first in T20Is). He and Rizwan were the only ones to make three 50+ scores. The Sri Lankan pair of Nissanka and K Mendis made two 50+ scores each.

Highest individual scores (50 or more):

Kohli’s 122* is far ahead of the next scores of 84 and 78*

Most wickets (6 or more):

B Kumar leads with 11 wickets, followed by PWH de Silva (Hasaranga). Kumar was the only one with a 5 -for. He and two others also scored 4-fors, as we see below.

Best innings bowling (including all 3wi or better):

PM Liyanagamage is often listed as P Madushan in scorecards.

Most dismissals (3 or more):

Iftikhar and Nissanka lead with 5 dismissals as fielders. A number of keepers have made 3 dismissals.

Most innings dismissals (2 or more):

Karthik has made 3 dismissals as a keeper, while Nawaz and Nissanka took 3 catches as fielders. No stumping is recorded here.

All-round match performance (Minimum 20 runs and 2 wickets):

In three roughly equal efforts, Hasaranga’s 36 and 3-27 in the final would be the best.

In this tournament, Sri Lanka did outshine the more favoured India and Pakistan.

Review of the Nidahas Trophy (2018)

This tournament is an one-off. There was another Nidahas Trophy in 1998 to mark the 50th anniversary of independence. That was also a triangular series but with 50-over matches. T20Is were still in the future.

This tournament was contested by Sri Lanka, India and New Zealand. Though the league matches were badly affected by rain, there was still a narrow 6-run win for India as Sri Lanka came close to chasing down a 300+ total in the final. Such things rarely happened in those days. See the scorecard:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/8560/scorecard/66157/sri-lanka-vs-india-final-singer-akai-nidahas-1998/

At least the host got to the final then, unlike on this occasion. This time it was Dinesh Karthik who won the match with one of the most famous last-ball sixes in limited-overs cricket history. But Javed Miandad may have something to say about that.

Here is a statistical summary of the 2018 edition. The sample size is too small to have meaningful figures for averages, strike rates and the like.

Most runs (90 and above):

Kusal Perera made 3 fifties, while three others made two apiece.

Highest innings (40 and above):

Dhawan and RG Sharma have the highest scores.

During the SL v BD match on 16 Mar, there was a wisecrack that Mr Perera had scored 119 runs and took 5 catches.

Most wickets (4 and above):

India’s junior spinners lead here, with a number of highly experienced bowlers following.

Best innings bowling (including all 3wi and above):

The 4 top positions are by Indian bowlers.

Most dismissals (3 or more):

Thissara Perera and Sabbir have the most (6) by non-keepers while Karthik (5) the most by keepers.

Most innings dismissals (2 or more):

Sabbir and Kusal Perera lead the non-keepers and keepers respectively.

All round performances (20+ runs and 2+ wickets in a match):

Only one instance.