BANGKOK: Saudi Arabia are in Thailand to play in the cricket ACC T20 Men’s Challenger Cup and they have happy memories of the last time they were in Bangkok.
The Greens are the highest ranked side in the tournament and will face Cambodia, who won the qualifier earlier this week, as well as Bhutan and Indonesia, who they beat in last year’s tournament.
This year they will be looking for a place in the ACC T20 Men’s Premier Cup in Oman and the team are confident of reaching the next Asia Cup in 2025. TCG in Bangkok is a place of many happy memories for the team.
This time last year Saudi Arabia came to the Thai capital and were the outstanding side of the tournament as they beat Bahrain in the final at TCG.
They started impressively with a strong bowling attack and quality in their top-order batting. They won three group matches to finish top of the table by beating Indonesia by eight wickets, Thailand by nine wickets and Myanmar by 327 runs even when they rotated their batting order.
They faced Bhutan in the semifinal, knowing another victory would win them a place in the Premier Cup in Nepal, which would see them face stronger teams. Bhutan were bowled out for 62 in 22.2 overs at TCG as Ishtiaq Ahmad took four for seven, and Saudi Arabia needed only 12.3 overs to qualify for the final and win a place in the Premier Cup with just one wicket down.
Bahrain, Saudi Arabia’s opponents in the final, had also won their three group matches and beat Thailand in the semifinal at AIT, and at the TCG in the final, a closer contest was expected. It was not to be as Bahrain were bowled out for just 26 in 21.1 overs as Atif-ur-Rehman took four for 10 and Ishtiaq Ahmad three for six as they caused chaos with the new ball.
Saudi Arabia needed only four overs to make 30 for 0 to win by 10 wickets in the most one-sided final imaginable that lasted little more than two hours. Ishtiaq Ahmad took 12 wickets in the tournament and Atif-ur-Rehman was also impressive with eight.
Opening batsman Waqar-ul-Hassan was unbeaten through the entire tournament as he took his side home to victory in the four matches when they batted second. In total he made an unbeaten 141 in the course of five innings, including *1 at number 11.
Batsman Abdul Waheed told Arab News earlier this week that the Saudi team were looking to repeat the feat and use this week’s tournament to take the game in the Kingdom to the “next level.”
