Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, 2021: Day 7 – Riyan Parag's captaincy debut, Devdhar @ 2000 runs and more stats

Another exciting day of play was witnessed in the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy as a total of nine matches took place on Saturday. The game between Gujarat and Chhattisgarh was reduced to five overs each due to rain but ended up witnessing a total of 127 runs coming in only 8.4 overs. Assam got the better of Bengal at the Eden Gardens thanks to an all-round performance by their captain Riyan Parag who smashed an unbeaten 77 and also claimed two wickets. Punjab and Himachal Pradesh registered 10-wicket wins in their respective matches.

Here are all the statistical highlights from the 7th day of the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy 2020-21:

1 – Riyan Parag led Assam against Bengal on Saturday to make his captaincy debut which made him the first player from India to be born in the 21st century and lead a team in the T20 format. Earlier in 2017, Riyan became the first Indian cricketer to be born in the 21st century to play first-class cricket.

1 – The 13-run win on Saturday was the maiden win for Assam in Indian domestic cricket against Bengal at the Eden Gardens. Before this win, Assam faced Bengal at the Eden Gardens on 36 instances in professional cricket (25 times in FC, 8 times in List A, and 3 times in T20) but had not registered even one outright win.

1 – Kedar Devdhar became the first player to reach 2000 runs in the history of the SMAT20. The Baroda batsman got to the milestone when he went past his individual score of 29 during his 99* against Maharashtra.

3 – Punjab, with their win against Jammu & Kashmir, became the first team in the history of Syed Mushtaq Ali to win as many as three matches with a margin of 10 wickets. They chased down the 140-run target without losing a wicket which is the 3rd biggest successful chase in SMAT20 Trophy without losing a wicket.

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7 – Pankaj Jaswal of Himachal Pradesh had figures of 4/15 in the game against Uttarakhand which is now the 7th instance of him claiming a 4-wicket haul in the history of the tournament. No player other than him has more than four 4-wicket hauls in the SMAT20 Trophy.

Siddarth Kaul took 4/33 for Punjab against Jammu & Kashmir on Saturday which puts him 2nd in this list alongside Rahul Shukla, Lukman Meriwala, Subodh Bhati and Ankit Rajpoot.

17.46 – The run rate of 17.46 by Gujarat during their 64/2 in 3.4 overs against Chhattisgarh is now the 5th highest run rate in any Twenty20 innings and also the highest in a T20 innings on Indian soil.

The previous highest was 17 by Karnataka when they scored 51/0 in 3 overs against Andhra in 2009 while chasing a target of 48 during a 5-over game. Gujarat’s innings also came while chasing a target of 64 in five overs.

71 – Kedar Devdhar completed 2000 runs in the Twenty20 format during the game against Maharashtra. He needed 71 innings to breach the milestone which makes him the 5th fastest Indian to get there.

99* – Devdhar smashed an unbeaten 99 while leading Baroda against Maharashtra in the absence of regular skipper Krunal Pandya (Left bio-bubble due to the passing away of his father). He is now the 4th player in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy to end up with a score of ‘99’.

Mukul Dagar (For Haryana in 2010), Prashant Chopra (For Himachal Pradesh in 2018) and Devdutt Padikkal (For Karnataka in 2021) also finished with 99*.