Prerana Toshniwal, Pune
In the men’s cricket opener at Asian Games T20I matches, the Nepal men’s team bagged multiple records at the Zhejiang University for Technology Pingfeng Cricket field in Hangzhou. The International Cricket Council (ICC) had previously confirmed that the matches at the Asian Games would carry T20I status.
On Wednesday, 27th September, in a match against Mongolia the Nepal team scored a total of 314 becoming the first team to score more than 300 runs in a T-20 International. This score has overtaken Afghanistan’s 278/3 against Ireland in 2019.
The top scorer of the match, nineteen-year-old Kushal Malla, was at 137 not out off 50 balls. He hit twelve sixes and eight fours throughout his batting. This means Kushal Malla overtakes Indian skipper Rohit Sharma and South Africa’s David Miller as he scores the fastest T20 century in just 34 balls. Both Rohit and Miller held this spot earlier with 35 balls.
In this eventful game for Nepal, there was more to follow. Alongside Kushal Malla was Dipendra Singh who blasted eight sixes in 10 balls and recorded the fastest 50 in 9 balls, breaking Yuvraj Singh’s record. Yuvraj Singh had a record of fastest 50 in 12 balls against England in the 2007 World Cup. 48 out of 52 runs came just from sixes for Dipendra Singh. This long-standing record has been broken after over 15 years.
On its way to the highest T20 runs, Nepal smashed a total of 26 sixes in its innings out of which twelve were hit by Kushal Malla and eight by Dipendra Singh making it the highest number of sixes hit by a team. This again breaks Afghanistan’s record from 2019.
As far as the Mongolian team is concerned, the team could only score 41 runs giving Nepal the biggest-ever 273-run victory in a T20 International.
The men’s cricket competition at the Asian Games has three groups which in turn have three teams each. The top-ranked team from each group will then qualify for the Quarter Finals where they will be joined by Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.