Asia Cup 2018: Match 2, Pakistan vs Hong Kong – Statistical Preview

Pakistan will be taking on Hong Kong in the first game of the three Group A matches in the Asia Cup before both face the top-ranked Asian team India. Hong Kong, who recently lost ODI status, bounced back by winning the Asia Cup Qualifier to make it to the big stage. The Associate nation has a point or two to prove by putting up a fight against the Asian powerhouses Pakistan and India even though they know they don’t stand a chance to stage an upset.

All the key stats and numbers ahead of Hong Kong’s first game in the Asia Cup after ten years:

1 – Anshuman Rath will be leading Hong Kong for the first time in an official match. The Hong Kong matches in the recent Asia Cup qualifiers neither had ODI status nor were recognized as List A games. Anshuman captained the Hong Kong team in three games during the 2017 ACC Emerging Teams Cup that held List A status; the only time he led any team in his professional career.

4 – Hong Kong have featured in four matches in the history of the tournament thus far losing all of them. Hong Kong and UAE are the only teams to have not won a game in the history of Asia Cup thus far. Hong Kong lost all the four matches they played in Asia Cup by a margin larger than 100 runs.

8 – Pakistan are currently on an eight-ODI winning streak in the UAE. Their last defeat here was way back in November 2015 against England. They defeated West Indies 3-0 in 2016 and Sri Lanka by 5-0 in 2017.

15-0 – Pakistan’s win-loss record in the Asia Cup against the teams other than India and Sri Lanka. They played 12 games against Bangladesh, two against Hong Kong and one against Afghanistan in the Asia Cup thus far winning all of them.

89.11 – Babar Azam has a stupendous record batting in UAE as the Pakistan batsman averages of 89.11 in the ODI format in this part of the world. He has scored 809 runs in the 11 ODI innings in this country including five consecutive hundreds.

1973 – Runs Babar Azam has scored in the 44 innings of his ODI career thus far. If Babar scores 27 more runs in the next innings, he will become the 2nd joint fastest to 2000 ODI runs. Hashim Amla needed 40 innings for the milestone while Zaheer Abbas and Kevin Pietersen also needed 45 innings.

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