Kuwait’s Ravija De Silva becomes first men’s T20I Centurion in 2019

Asian Cricket Council’s Western Region T20 is the first International event for 2019, which is being played with official T20I status in Oman between the Associate members of Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Maldives. The tournament, which has got postponed twice in Nov and Dec 2018, is being held at the beginning of the year under the revised ICC rules of uniform T20I status to all T20 International matches being played between it’s 105 members.

The tournament has already provided some close contests and notable individual performances with Kuwait’s Ravija De Silva becoming the first T20I centurion in men’s T20 Internationals in 2019. Hassan Ibrahim of Maldives has become the first bowler in 2019 to take a T20I 5-wicket haul in men’s Internationals. The tournament also witnessed the first ever T20I super-over of the year after the match between Kuwait and Qatar ended in a tie with both teams ending up at identical scores.

Ravija De Silva has also scored a half-century at the start of the tournament to have a total of 174 runs to his name so far from 3 matches. Rishwan Mohamed of Maldives is the 2nd highest run-getter in the tournament, with 147 runs to his name, with two half-centuries. Imran Ali Butt (Bahrain) is the 3rd highest run-getter with 117 runs from 3 matches with two half-centuries to his name. Hassan Ibrahim (Maldives) currently leads the bowling charts with 9 wickets from 4 matches followed by Tamoor Sajjad (Qatar) and Imran Ali (Kuwait) with 7 wickets from 3 matches.

The tournament has now reached it’s climax as the final day of action will see the final round of group-stage matches followed by the day-night Final between the top 2 sides. Maldives are already out of contention after failing to register any win during their 4 group-stage matches; however, all the remaining four team’s are still in with a chance to qualify for the Final. Saudi Arabia though have a lot tougher route ahead of them to first win their final match by a big margin against Kuwait and hope the other match result between Qatar and Bahrain goes their way (for their chances, Bahrain should not win).

In all probability, it will come down to the performances of Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain to contest a 3-way showdown to determine the top 2 positions. The tournament has provided good preparatory scenarios for both Kuwait and Qatar, who will be in action in the ICC men’s T20 World Cup Asia regional finals at a later date.

ACC Western Region T20 Points Table