ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifiers – The Movers & The Shakers

Netherlands were crowned Champions in the 2019 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifiers held across 15 days at various venues at Dubai and Abu Dhabi in UAE. The 15-day competition saw 51 matches being held including the group stages and play-off’s/finals with a total of 13,422 runs and 685 wickets recorded by players from 14 participating countries.

Although 8 team’s out of the 14 made it to the play-off stages, the remaining team’s players also provided some impressive display of T20 skills during the group stage of the tournament. Some of the tournament key statistics made by the players are listed below:

1. Ireland’s Paul Stirling was the highest run-scorer in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier 2019 (overall including the play-off’s), with 291 runs, followed by Namibia’s Gerhard Erasmus with 268 runs and Oman’s Jatinder Singh with 267 runs. Canada’s Nitish Kumar was the highest run-scorer during the group stages, with 245 runs.
2. Canada’s Nitish Kumar was the only player to record three half-centuries in succession during ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier 2019.
3. Oman’s Bilal Khan took 18 wickets at ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier 2019, the highest, followed by Namibia’s JJ Smit and Netherlands Brandon Glover with 16 scalps each. Bilal Khan was also the only bowler to take consecutive 4-for’s (vs Namibia and Hong Kong) in the tournament.
4. Namibia’s JJ Smit picked up 11 wickets during the over 17-20 at ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier 2019, the most by any bowler.
5. Netherlands wicket-keeper Scott Edwards took 13 catches at ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier 2019, the most by any wicket-keeper.
6. Papua New Guinea’s Assad Vala and Tony Ura scored 377 runs in partnership during ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier 2019, the most by a batting pair for any of the countries in the tournament.
7. Bermuda’s Delray Rawlins scored the most of his runs in boundaries, with 131 runs coming in 6 matches with a boundary run % of 73.3 at ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier 2019.
8. Ireland’s Gareth Delany and UAE’s Mohammad Usman registered the highest individual score of 89 n.o at ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier 2019, followed by Kenya’s Dhiren Gondaria (85 n.o) and Canada’s Nitish Kumar (83).
9. Netherlands Paul van Meekeren bowled the most number of dot balls (109) at ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier 2019, followed by Oman’s Bilal Khan (104) and Netherlands Roelof van der Merwe (96).
10. Namibia’s Bernard Scholtz and Netherlands Brandon Glover registered the best bowling/wicket figures of 4/12, at ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier 2019, followed by Ireland’s Craig Young (4/13) and Oman’s Aamir Kaleem (4/14).
11. Ireland’s Boyd Ranking, Singapore’s Vinoth Baskaran and UAE pair of Ahmed Raza and Sultan Ahmed bowled the most number of dot balls in an innings (19 off 24) at ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier 2019, with Vinoth’s feat coming against Bermuda, while the others registered the feat against Nigeria.
12. Namibia’s JJ Smit hit the most number of 6’s at ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier 2019 with 14, followed by Namibia’s Gerhard Erasmus and Scotland’s George Munsey with 11 6’s in the tournament.

While Namibia’s Gerhard Erasmus was adudged the player-of-the-tournament, there were 41 players including him, who won the player-of-the-match awards in the 51 games played, with Canada’s Nitish Kumar and Papua New Guinea’s Norman Vanua picking up the award on 3 occasions.

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