Dates | 21 – 24 October 2021 |
---|---|
Administrator(s) | Malta Cricket Association |
Cricket format | Twenty20 International |
Host(s) | Malta |
Champions | Malta |
Runners-up | Switzerland |
Participants | 4 |
Matches | 8 |
Player of the series | Avinash Pai |
Most runs | Louis Bruce (222) |
Most wickets | Ashwin Vinod (9) |
The 2021 Valletta Cup was a Twenty20 International (T20I) cricket tournament held in Malta between 21 and 24 October 2021. [1] It was the second edition of the Valletta Cup. The matches were played at the Marsa Sports Club in Marsa. [2] The participating teams were the hosts Malta along with Bulgaria, Gibraltar and Switzerland. [1]
This was the first international tournament for Switzerland since the introduction of global T20I status in January 2019, [3] and their re-admittance to the International Cricket Council (ICC) in July 2021. [1] Cricket Switzerland (previously known as the Swiss Cricket Association), had been suspended by the ICC in 2012 due to non-compliance following the formation of a second organization also claiming to oversee cricket in the country. [4] They were one of three nations to gain Associate membership after the ICC's annual general meeting in July 2021. [5] [6]
Switzerland finished on top of the round-robin stage with three wins. [7] Malta defeated Switzerland in the final, [8] after Bulgaria defeated Gibraltar in the third-place playoff. [9] After the tournament, Malta and Gibraltar played a rain-affected two-match bilateral T20I series that was shared after one game was lost to the weather and the other finished as a DLS method tie. [10]
Bulgaria | Gibraltar [11] | Malta | Switzerland [1] |
---|---|---|---|
Team [12] | P | W | L | T | NR | Pts | NRR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Switzerland | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | +3.067 |
Malta | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 | +1.379 |
Gibraltar | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | –1.274 |
Bulgaria | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | –3.662 |
v | ||
Heinrich Gericke 64 (25) Avinash Pai 2/28 (4 overs) | Louis Bruce 57* (55) Bilal Muhammad 1/24 (4 overs) |
v | ||
Louis Bruce 31 (27) Aidan Andrews 3/21 (4 overs) | Osama Mahmood 58* (46) Charles Harrison 1/19 (2 overs) |
v | ||
Jacob Albin 19* (30) Aneesh Kumar 3/3 (2.3 overs) | Arjun Vinod 43* (20) Delrick Varghese 1/21 (1 over) |
v | ||
Avinash Pai 107* (52) Sulaiman Ali 2/38 (4 overs) | Hristo Lakov 80 (63) James Fitzgerald 2/37 (4 overs) |
v | ||
Asad Mahmood 33 (25) Bikram Arora 3/20 (4 overs) | Bilal Muhammad 35* (17) Ashwin Vinod 3/30 (4 overs) |
v | ||
Bikram Arora 42 (39) Aneesh Kumar 2/26 (4 overs) | Idrees Ul Haque 42 (23) Varun Thamotharam 3/25 (4 overs) |
v | ||
Varun Thamotharam 50 (27) Louis Bruce 4/13 (3 overs) | Kieron Ferrary 35* (25) Waseem Abbas 1/15 (2 overs) |
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