The Asia Cup 2025 has begun. The first match is being played between Afghanistan and Hong Kong. In the first match, there was a possibility that Afghanistan’s team was heavy, but Hong Kong initially tried to hold a wicket.
Hong Kong bowler Atik Iqbal will be remembered for many years. Often such things are rarely seen in T20 cricket. He has now become the fourth bowler to do so in the T20 Asia Cup. Let me tell you what Etiq Iqbal has done.
Rashid Khan won the toss and chose the bat first
In the first match of the Asia Cup, Afghan captain Rashid Khan won the toss and decided to bat first. The team may have tried to score as much runs as possible, but Hong Kong bowlers did not allow that to happen at least. The first blow to Afghanistan was when the team’s score was only 25 runs and only the third over was running.
Ayush Shukla dismissed Rahmanullah Gurbaz for just 8 runs. After this, Ibrahim Zadran came to bat third. When Atik Iqbal dismissed him, he was able to score only 4 runs. The special thing was that in this over, Atik not only took the wicket, but also gave a single run. He has become the fourth bowler to do so in the first 6 overs of the T20 Asia Cup.
Athik Iqbal made history
So far only one from India and 2 bowlers from Pakistan have been able to do this work. Mohammad Aamir of Pakistan in the 2016 T20 Asia Cup took a wicket in the powerplay against the UAE in Mirpur and gave no run. Bhubaneswar Kumar of India did the same in the 2016 T20 Asia Cup. After this, Shahnawaz Dahani of Pakistan took wickets in 1 over against Hong Kong in the 2022 T20 Asia Cup and did not give a run. Let me tell you that the figures are the first 6 overs of the match.
History for Hong Kong
Apart from the three bowlers of India and Pakistan, Atik Iqbal has become the only bowler to achieve this feat. It has also made history for Hong Kong. The Asia Cup has begun today and Atik has made a comeback. Now the expectations from him have increased. It is important to see how they perform in the next matches.
