Rajneesh Gupta lists interesting records from the first week of the Super 12 competition in the T20 World Cup.
Out to the first ball of the match
Scotland's George Munsey fell on the very first ball of the match against Namibia -- bowled by Ruben Trumpelmann.
Munsey thus became the fourth player to suffer the ignominy of getting out to the first ball of a T20 World Cup match, joining Ireland's William Porterfield, Afghanistan's Mohammad Shahzad and Hong Kong's Irfan Ahmed.
Porterfield suffered this fate not once, but twice in the same edition (2012).
Trumpelmann went on to take two more wickets in his opening over in this match, making him the first bowler to take three wickets in the first over of a Twenty20 International match.
100-wicket club members
Two players joined the 100-wicket club in Twenty20 Internationals during the first week -- both players did so in games against Pakistan -- New Zealand's Tim Southee at Sharjah and Afghanistan's Rashid Khan at Dubai.
Tim and Rashid joined Lasith Malinga and Shakib Al Hasan as members of the exclusive 100-wicket club.
Rashid is the quickest to this landmark, taking only 53 matches.
Malinga had taken 76 matches, whereas both Shakib and Southee needed 84 matches each.
Interestingly, Rashid is also the quickest to the 100-wicket mark in One-Day Internationals, taking only 44 matches to accomplish the feat.
The duck-tale
The Afghanistan-Scotland match turned out to be one of the most one-sided affairs in T20 World Cup history.
Batting first, Afghanistan posted a mammoth 190 for four, with every batter contributing.
Scotland were 28 without loss at one stage, but then lost six wickets in a span of 20 balls as Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Rashid Khan ran through their batting.
Scotland's 3, 4, 5 and 6 batsmen all failed to open their account -- providing the first such occurrence in Twenty20 Internationals history.
Mujeeb ended with five scalps, while Rashid ended with four as Afghanistan achieved their biggest win in this format.
Sixes galore!
Asif Ali came to this tournament with an average of 16.38 and a career strike-rate of 123.74, hardly the kind of performance for someone to take notice of.
He has a reputation of being one of the hardest hitters in Pakistan's domestic cricket, but his returns in international cricket had been pretty ordinary.
Question mars were being raised over his inclusion in the side.
Two innings in this World Cup and Asif has put all these doubts to rest.
Both innings have given Pakistan two crucial wins -- first against New Zealand and then against Afghanistan.
With 24 needed off the last two overs against Afghanistan, Asif launched into Karim Janat and finished the game in the penultimate over itself with four sixes in the over.
Asif needed only seven balls to win the player of the match award, the fewest for anyone without doing any bowling role in a Twenty20 International.
Asif wrested the record from Dinesh Karthik who won the award with an 8-ball 29* in the Nidahas Trophy final against Bangladesh in 2018.
Biggest chase without losing a wicket
Coming into this match, India had an unblemished 12-0 record against Pakistan in World Cups.
Pakistan ended their losing streak in emphatic fashion as India's below-par total of 151 was overshadowed by Pakistan's opening pair of Mohammad Rizwan and Babar Azam with 13 balls to spare.
There have been other instances of sides registering 10 wicket wins in the T20 World Cup, but none chasing a target this big.
In fact, in all Twenty20 Internationals, there has been only one higher 10-wicket chase.
Interestingly, Pakistan were at the receiving end on that occasion (versus New Zealand).
Fastest to 1,000 T20I runs as captain
In the match against Afghanistan, Babar Azam became the first from Pakistan and ninth in all to aggregate 1,000 runs as a captain in Twenty20 Internationals.
Babar needed only 26 innings to reach the mark -- the least by any captain.
Virat Kohli held the previous record, with 30 innings.
A World Cup hat-trick
In the match against South Africa, Sri Lanka's Wanindu Hasaranga became only the third player to take a hat-trick in a T20 World Cup match when he dismissed Aiden Markram off the last ball of his third over and then Temba Bavuma and Dwaine Pretorius off the first two balls of his fourth over.
Hasaranga joined Australia's Brett Lee who had accomplished this feat against Bangladesh in the 2007 edition and Ireland's Curtis Campher who took four in four against The Netherlands in the first round match in the 2021 edition.
Hasaranga, by the way, had taken a hat-trick on his ODI debut as well!
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
