Spain conclude successful T20I series tour of Finland

Finland hosted Spain men’s national squad for a 3-match T20I series at home, the first time the country was hosting T20I’s on it’s soil. Spain, however, shrugged off the defeat in the first match of the series to win the next two games and win the series 2-1.

All matches, played at Kerava National Cricket Ground, saw host’s pick up the lead in the first match of the series, with a good display from the batters to post a 180+ score and restricting Spain to only 103 to notch up a comfortable win. The 2nd match was played on the same day, and Spain bounced back with good performance with both bat and ball to first restrict Finland to 135 and then chasing down the target in the 19th over.

With the series on the line in the final match, both camps produced a tense game in which Spain eventually came out trumps. Batting first, Finland managed to rack up 158 run on board and Spain only managed to chase it down in their 20th over to win the game by 4 wickets. Ravi Panchal was the stand-out player in the series with 126 runs and 6 wickets to his name for Spain. For the home side, Nurul Huda impressed with his bowling accolades, while Nathan Collins and Peter Gallagher made the highest contributions with the bat.

Spain are currently ranked #43 in the global T20I team rankings, while Finland are at #67 in the ranking table. With sub-regional qualifiers for 2021 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup expected to start at year-end or early 2020’s, both the countries will be seen in action with more T20I matches in the offing for both.

Brief Scores

1st T20I: Finland 185/8 in 20 overs (Aravind Kumar Mohan 41, Aniketh Pusthay 37, Peter Gallagher 34, Nathan Collins 20, Maneesh Chauhan 15, Paul Hennessy 2/23, Kuldeep Karan 2/33, Ravi Panchal 1/19) beat Spain 103 all out in 15 overs (Kuldeep Karan 23, Ravi Panchal 23, Maneesh Chauhan 2/16, Nurul Huda 2/17, Shoaib Qureshi 2/22, Hariharan Dandapani 2/6) by 82 runs

2nd T20I: Finland 135/8 in 20 overs (Nurul Huda 30 n.o, Aniketh Pusthay 23, Tonmoy Saha 18 n.o, Ravi Panchal 3/22, Tom Vine 2/23, Faran Afzal 1/20, Atif Mehmood 1/23) lost to Spain 141/4 in 19 overs (Yasir Ali 37 n.o, Ravi Panchal 32, Christian Munoz Mills 29 n.o, Vinod Kumar 17, Nurul Huda 2/26, Amjad Sher 1/16, Shoaib Qureshi 1/34) by 6 wickets

3rd T20I: Finland 158/8 in 20 overs (Nathan Collins 56, Peter Gallagher 36, Amjad Sher 24, Paul Hennessy 3/27, Ravi Panchal 2/22, Atif Mehmood 2/31, Zulqarnain Haider 1/24) lost to Spain 159/6 in 19.4 overs (Ravi Panchal 71 n.o, Kuldeep Lal 38, Paul Hennessy 18, Amjad Sher 2/22, Shoaib Qureshi 2/31, Maneesh Chauhan 1/22) by 4 wickets

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