Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, 2021: Quarter-Finals – Solanki's finishing effort, Punjab's winning streak, Karnataka's collapse and more stats

Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Baroda and Rajasthan secured wins in their respective quarter-finals of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy held on Tuesday and Wednesday at the renovated Motera Stadium. Defending champions Karnataka succumbed to just 87 to lose hopes on their 3rd successive title win. Bihar did give a tough fight to Rajasthan despite coming from the plate group. The highlight of the quarters was the game between Baroda and Haryana where the Baroda batsman Vishnu Solanki struck 6, 4 and 6 to take his team over the line when 15 runs were needed from final three deliveries.

Here are all the statistical highlights from the quarter-finals of the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy 2020-21:

5 – Vishnu Solanki struck a six on the final ball of the game against Haryana with five runs needed to win. These are the joint-most runs any team needed on the final ball in the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy. Solanki’s 16 runs in the last three balls are by far the most in this competition.

6 – Punjab will face Baroda on Friday in the semi-final having won each of their last six matches in the tournament. This is the first time Punjab have won six straight games in the T20 format despite winning 53 out of 91 T20 matches they played before the current tournament.

9 – The duck against Himachal Pradesh was the 9th in Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy for Arun Karthik. These are now the joint-most number of ducks for any player in the history of the competition as Pritam Das and Bipul Sharma also bagged nine ducks apiece.

16 – Bihar’s Ashutosh Aman ended his campaign in SMA T20 Trophy 2020-21 with 16 wickets across six matches. These are the most number of wickets picked in a Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy by any of the recent entrant teams to the Indian domestic circuit.

Aman’s 16 wickets are also the joint-most by any player in an SMA T20 Trophy edition playing as few as six games. Darshan Nalkade of Vidarbha also took 16 wickets across six matches during the 2019-20 season.

87 – The total of 87/10 by Karnataka against Punjab was their 2nd lowest ever in the Twenty20 format. Their lowest T20 score was 66 against Goa during the 2013-14 season game of the SMA T20 Trophy in Vizag.

87 – Karnataka’s total of 87 is also the lowest in the T20 format at the Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad. The previous lowest was 97 by Bengal against Madhya Pradesh in the first week of the T20 games the venue had ever hosted during the 2006-07 season.

2015 – The game between Punjab and Karnataka marked the return of professional cricket to Ahmedabad’s Motera after a gap of nearly six years. The last professional game hosted by the venue was during the IPL 2015 when the Royal Challengers Bangalore took on the hosts Rajasthan Royals.