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2021 Valletta Cup

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)
← 20192022 →

The 2021 Valletta Cup was a Twenty20 International (T20I) cricket tournament held in Malta between 21 and 24 October 2021. It was the second edition of the Valletta Cup. The matches were played at the Marsa Sports Club in Marsa. The participating teams were the hosts Malta along with Bulgaria, Gibraltar and Switzerland.

This was the first international tournament for Switzerland since the introduction of global T20I status in January 2019, and their re-admittance to the International Cricket Council (ICC) in July 2021. 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. They were one of three nations to gain Associate membership after the ICC's annual general meeting in July 2021.

Switzerland finished on top of the round-robin stage with three wins. Malta defeated Switzerland in the final, after Bulgaria defeated Gibraltar in the third-place playoff. 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.

Squads

Bulgaria	Gibraltar	Malta	Switzerland
Prakash Mishra (c) Hristo Lakov (vc) Atagul Ahmadhel Jacob Albin Sulaiman Ali Rohan Bhavesh Patel Kevin D'Souza Aravinda De Silva Akshay Harikumar Saim Hussain (wk) Ivaylo Katzarski Ahsan Khan Andrey Lilov Omar Rassol (wk) Bakhtiar Tahiri Delrick Varghese	Avinash Pai (c) Nikhil Advani Louis Bruce Luke Collado (wk) Richard Cunningham Chris Delany Kieron Ferrary (wk) James Fitzgerald Charles Harrison Patrick Hatchman Joseph Marples (wk) Kenroy Nestor Morgan Peters Philip Raikes Andrew Reyes Dave Robeson Joe Wilson	Bikram Arora (c) Amar Sharma (vc) Waseem Abbas Samuel Aquilina (wk) Gopal Chaturvedi Basil George Heinrich Gericke Aaftab Alam Khan (wk) Zeeshan Khan Niraj Khanna Kalki Kumar Zoheb Malek Bilal Muhammad Fazil Rahman Samuel Stanislaus Varun Thamotharam Jojo Thomas Deon Vosloo	Anser Mehmood (c) Nicolas Henderson (wk) Noorkhan Ahmedi Aidan Andrews Stefan Franklin Aneesh Kumar Asvin Lakkaraju Asad Mahmood Osama Mahmood Matthew Martin Ali Nayyer Idrees Ul Haque Arjun Vinod Ashwin Vinod

Valletta Cup

Points table

Team	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

Fixtures

Malta  213/5 (20 overs)	v	Gibraltar 152/2 (20 overs)
Heinrich Gericke 64 (25) Avinash Pai 2/28 (4 overs)		Louis Bruce 57* (55) Bilal Muhammad 1/24 (4 overs)

• Malta won the toss and elected to bat.
• Aaftab Alam Khan, Kalki Kumar (Mlt), Philip Raikes and Andrew Reyes (Gib) all made their T20I debuts.

Gibraltar  133/9 (20 overs)	v	Switzerland 134/1 (14.4 overs)
Louis Bruce 31 (27) Aidan Andrews 3/21 (4 overs)		Osama Mahmood 58* (46) Charles Harrison 1/19 (2 overs)

• Gibraltar won the toss and elected to bat.
• Noorkhan Ahmedi, Aidan Andrews, Stefan Franklin, Nicolas Henderson, Asad Mahmood, Osama Mahmood, Anser Mehmood, Ali Nayyer, Idrees Ul Haque, Arjun Vinod and Ashwin Vinod (Sui) all made their T20I debuts.

Bulgaria  81 (19.3 overs)	v	Switzerland 82/2 (6 overs)
Jacob Albin 19* (30) Aneesh Kumar 3/3 (2.3 overs)		Arjun Vinod 43* (20) Delrick Varghese 1/21 (1 over)

• Bulgaria won the toss and elected to bat.
• Ahsan Khan, Andrey Lilov (Bul) and Aneesh Kumar (Sui) all made their T20I debuts.

Gibraltar  217/4 (20 overs)	v	Bulgaria 180/5 (20 overs)
Avinash Pai 107* (52) Sulaiman Ali 2/38 (4 overs)		Hristo Lakov 80 (63) James Fitzgerald 2/37 (4 overs)

• Bulgaria won the toss and elected to field.
• Dave Robeson (Gib) made his T20I debut.
• Avinash Pai became the first player for Gibraltar to score a century in T20Is.

Switzerland  150/9 (20 overs)	v	Malta 142/9 (20 overs)
Asad Mahmood 33 (25) Bikram Arora 3/20 (4 overs)		Bilal Muhammad 35* (17) Ashwin Vinod 3/30 (4 overs)

• Switzerland won the toss and elected to bat.
• Matthew Martin (Sui) made his T20I debut.

Bulgaria  150/6 (20 overs)	v	Malta 153/4 (17 overs)
Omar Rassol 63* (36) Varun Thamotharam 2/30 (4 overs)		Basil George 41 (27) Sulaiman Ali 2/26 (3 overs)

• Bulgaria won the toss and elected to bat.
• Zoheb Malek and Deon Vosloo (Mlt) both made their T20I debuts.

Third-place play-off

Gibraltar  177/9 (20 overs)	v	Bulgaria 178/4 (20 overs)
Avinash Pai 71 (37) Prakash Mishra 3/22 (4 overs)		Aravinda De Silva 62 (40) Charles Harrison 2/31 (4 overs)

• Gibraltar won the toss and elected to bat.

Final

Malta  176/7 (20 overs)	v	Switzerland 170/8 (20 overs)
Bikram Arora 42 (39) Aneesh Kumar 2/26 (4 overs)		Idrees Ul Haque 42 (23) Varun Thamotharam 3/25 (4 overs)

• Malta won the toss and elected to bat.

Bilateral series

Gibraltarian cricket team in Malta in 2021–22
	Malta	Gibraltar
Date	25 October 2021
Captains	Bikram Arora	Avinash Pai
Twenty20 International series
Results	2-match series drawn 0–0
Most runs	Varun Thamotharam (50)	Kieron Ferrary (35)
Most wickets	Waseem Abbas (1) Bilal Muhammad (1)	Louis Bruce (4)

1st T20I

Malta	v	Gibraltar

• No toss.
• No play was possible due to rain.

2nd T20I

Malta  145 (19 overs)	v	Gibraltar 57/2 (7.2 overs)
Varun Thamotharam 50 (27) Louis Bruce 4/13 (3 overs)		Kieron Ferrary 35* (25) Waseem Abbas 1/15 (2 overs)

• Gibraltar won the toss and elected to field.
• No further play was possible due to rain. Gibraltar had been set a revised target of 98 runs from 12 overs.
• Jojo Thomas (Mlt) and Kieron Ferrary (Gib) both made their T20I debuts.

References

1. ^ "T20 international series in Malta". Cricket Switzerland. Archived from the original on 19 October 2021. Retrieved 14 October 2021.
2. "Swiss men's team to make T20I debut in 4-nation quadrangular tournament in Malta". Czarsportz. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
3. "All T20 matches between ICC members to get international status". International Cricket Council. 26 April 2018. Retrieved 10 September 2021.
4. "Cricket Switzerland bidding to regain ICC associate member status - eight years after suspension". Inside the Games. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
5. "Get to know the ICC's three newest Members". International Cricket Council. Retrieved 16 July 2021.
6. "Three new ICC Members, Russia suspended, Zambia terminated". Emerging Cricket. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
7. "Valletta Cup - iT20 series in Malta". Cricket Switzerland. Archived from the original on 24 October 2021. Retrieved 31 October 2021.
8. "Malta Cricket beat Switzerland to lift Valletta Cup at Marsa Oval". Times of Malta. Retrieved 27 October 2021.
9. "Malta crowned 2021 Valletta Cup champions". Emerging Cricket. Retrieved 31 October 2021.
10. "Gibraltar cricket match against Malta ends in tie due to rain". Gibraltar Chronicle. Retrieved 25 October 2021.
11. "Squad announcement alert". Gibraltar Cricket (via Facebook). Retrieved 2 October 2021.
12. "Valletta Cup 2021/22 Table". ESPN Cricinfo. Retrieved 23 October 2021.
13. "Centuries in Twenty20 International cricket – innings by innings". ESPNcricinfo. Retrieved 23 October 2021.

External links

• Series home at ESPN Cricinfo (Valletta Cup)
• Series home at ESPN Cricinfo (Gibraltar in Malta)

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