After winning ECI Sweden, Team Sweden does it AGAIN!
This time in Budapest, beating home side Hungary and Portugal in the ECI Hungary series. Back to back success creates history.
All round performances with important contributions across the 6 games, helped Sweden to stay on top and beat Portugal in the final game to clinch the trophy in extreme heat and humidity.
Sweden played 3 matches on Day 1 and beat Hungary twice lost to Portugal.
Highlights of day 1:
Samiullah Rahmani’s match winning performance against Hungary in the first match. He scored 78 runs off just 25 balls! Zaker Taqawi backed it up by picking 4 wickets!
Khalid Zahid’s performance in the second match was the standout for Sweden, scoring 64 of 21 balls! Sweden could only put 120 on the board and was not enough against Portugal
Share Ali stole the show in the third match of the day! His scintillating century (116 off 31 balls) ably supported by Saeed Ahmed (59 off 22 balls), helped in setting up a mammoth target of 201 runs! This set-up a handsome win for Sweden.
Sweden played 3 matches on Day 2, won 2 with the final being the most crucial.(Hungary and Portugal). Highlights of day 2:
In the first match, Sweden batted first with some good contributions from Abdul Naser Baloch (38 off 13 balls), Share Ali (31 off 10 balls) & Saeed Ahmed (27 off 10 balls). These contributions helped them post 163 as a target against Portugal but the bowling department failed to execute the bowling plans to win the game.
In the second match, Sweden came back roaring and put up a big total of 199 runs, set-up by Samiullah Rahmani (63 of 19 balls) and Saeed Ahmed (62 of 17 balls). Zabi Zahid was pick of the bowlers taking 2 wickets and setting up a good win against Hungary.
In the last encounter of the day, the final game, Sweden batted first and put up a decent total of 175 runs, backed by good performances by Share Ali (72 of 25 balls) and Khalid Zahid (38 of 11 balls). Khalid continued his good performance by picking up 3 wickets.
‘All in all, an excellent performance away from home by Team Sweden, great to see different players stepped g and winning key moments as players are challenged in different match condition compared to Sweden. Overall, a competitive weekend of cricket, lots of key learning points and reflections as we gear up for the next tournament. I am pleased the back to back success with the current structure which has never been achieved or witnessed in the history of Swedish cricket’
Director of Cricket – Qasim Ali.
