The 2017 Desert T20 Challenge was an international Twenty20 International (T20I) cricket tournament that was held in Dubai and Abu Dhabi from 14 to 20 January 2017. The eight Associate Members of the International Cricket Council that have T20I status were scheduled to take part. However, Papua New Guinea declined to participate and were replaced by Namibia (who did not have T20I status at the time). Therefore, matches with Namibia were played as Twenty20 matches.
The fixtures for the tournament were confirmed by the Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) in December 2016. The eight teams were split into two groups of four teams, with Afghanistan, Ireland, Namibia and the United Arab Emirates in Group A and Netherlands, Scotland, Oman and Hong Kong in Group B. The semi-finals and final of the tournament took place at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on 20 January.
Afghanistan and Ireland qualified from Group A and Scotland and Oman qualified from Group B for the finals stage of the tournament. Afghanistan beat Ireland by 10 wickets in the final match to win the tournament.
Teams
Squads Asghar Stanikzai (c) Fareed Ahmad Amir Hamza Karim Janat Rashid Khan Nawroz Mangal Mohammad Nabi Gulbadin Naib Naveen-ul-Haq Mohammad Shahzad Samiullah Shinwari Najeeb Tarakai Dawlat Zadran Najibullah Zadran Babar Hayat (c) Nadeem Ahmed Tanveer Ahmed Waqas Barkat Christopher Carter Kyle Christie Aizaz Khan Ehsan Khan Nizakat Khan Waqas Khan Cameron McAuslan Ehsan Nawaz Anshuman Rath Shahid Wasif William Porterfield (c) Andrew Balbirnie George Dockrell Josh Little Jacob Mulder Andrew McBrine Barry McCarthy Kevin O'Brien Stuart Poynter Boyd Rankin Paul Stirling Greg Thompson Stuart Thompson Lorcan Tucker Gary Wilson Craig Young Sarel Burger (c) Stephan Baard Christopher Coombe Gerhard Erasmus Jan Frylinck Zane Green Jean-Pierre Kotze Mika Mutumbe Colin Peake Bernard Scholtz JJ Smit Gerrie Snyman Louis van der Westhuizen Craig Williams Peter Borren (c) Wesley Barresi Ben Cooper Vivian Kingma Ahsan Malik Stephan Myburgh Max O'Dowd Michael Rippon Pieter Seelaar Timm van der Gugten Roelof van der Merwe Paul van Meekeren Tobias Visee Sikander Zulfiqar Sultan Ahmed (c) Khawar Ali Aqib Ilyas Kaleemullah Bilal Khan Mehran Khan Naseem Khushi Ajay Lalcheta Sufyan Mahmood Zeeshan Maqsood Mohammad Nadeem Khurram Nawaz Arun Poulose Rajesh Ranpura Kyle Coetzer (c) Richie Berrington Matthew Cross Josh Davey Con de Lange (vc) Michael Leask Calum MacLeod George Munsey Safyaan Sharif Chris Sole Craig Wallace Mark Watt Brad Wheal Amjad Javed (c) Shaiman Anwar Imran Haider Zahoor Khan Rohan Mustafa Adnan Mufti Mohammad Naveed Mohammed Qasim Ahmed Raza Ghulam Shabber Mohammad Shahzad Rameez Shahzad Muhammed Shanil Muhammad Usman
Before the tournament started, both Andrew Balbirnie and Stuart Thompson were ruled out of Ireland's squad due to injury. They were replaced by Stuart Poynter and Lorcan Tucker respectively.
Fixtures Group A
Group B
Finals
Statistics
Most runs Player Matches Innings Runs Average SR HS 100 50 4s 6s Mohammad Shahzad 5 5 207 51.75 121.76 80 0 2 26 6 Gary Wilson 5 5 155 51.66 156.56 65* 0 1 15 5 Paul Stirling 5 5 152 30.40 128.81 60 0 1 16 5 Calum MacLeod 4 4 117 39.00 131.46 60 0 1 8 4 Shaiman Anwar 3 3 110 36.66 100.00 66* 0 2 9 2Source: ESPN Cricinfo
Most wickets Player Matches Innings Wickets Overs Econ. Ave. BBI S/R 4WI 5WI Jacob Mulder 5 5 10 18 5.66 10.20 4/16 10.80 1 0 Rashid Khan 5 5 9 16.2 3.61 6.55 3/4 10.80 0 0 Amir Hamza 4 4 7 16 4.81 11.00 2/15 13.70 0 0 Mohammad Nabi 5 5 7 16.2 5.69 13.28 4/10 14.00 1 0 Bilal Khan 4 4 7 13.5 8.45 16.71 3/18 11.80 0 0Source: ESPN Cricinfo
See also ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier
References
External links Series home at ESPN Cricinfo