SMAT 2022-23: Top 5 Impactful Players: Nitish Rana, Tilak Varma present decent case for themselves
SMAT 2022-23: Top 5 Impactful Players: Nitish Rana, Tilak Varma, Prithvi Shaw, Abhishek Sharma, Samarth Vyas make it to the list of impactful players so far in Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2022-23.
Even though the Indian Premier League (IPL) has been one of the shining beacons for Indian domestic players to display their skills and talent before the world, they still need to perform well in the domestic T20 competition named Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT) in order to earn a ticket for the IPL.
Besides the upcoming set of players, those players who suffer a dip in their form could also polish themselves playing in this domestic T20 tournament.
Let’s look at some of the impactful players who have changed the course of the game with their batting and bowling performances in the first two weeks of the ongoing SMAT 2022 which started at different venues across India on October 11.
Nitish Rana (Delhi) - 307 runs and 11 wickets
The Delhi captain was in decent touch in IPL 2022 for the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) scoring 361 runs in 14 games at a strike rate of 143.82, but the issue with him was lacking some big individual scores after getting his eyes in.
But in the ongoing Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2022, he has changed his style of play being one of the flexible members of the side; scoring crucial runs in the latter half of the innings besides finishing games have been shinning developments as regards Rana. The left-hander in his very second game of the season against Punjab at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur, played an unbelievable knock of 107 runs in just 61 balls with the help of nine boundaries and seven maximums.
He carried his form in the next game of the season before finishing the group stage with an outstanding innings of 61 in 31 deliveries against Tripura thanks to four boundaries and five maximums to carry Delhi to the quarter finals of the season. Besides scoring those truckloads of runs, he has also offered his side an extra cushion of bowling a few vital overs in all the phases of the innings.
Till now the second highest run-getter of SMAT 2022, Nitish Rana has scored 307 runs in seven innings at an average of 51.16 and strike rate of 143.45 besides recording 11 wickets in seven games at an economy of 7.10 and he is expected to add more runs going deep into the tournament.
Read More: IPL 2022: MI’s new find Kumar Kartikeya Singh’s Story - When Dreams meet Determination
Abhishek Sharma (Punjab) - 199 runs and seven scalps
The 22-year-old Punjab opener and a sensational future star for India, Abhishek Sharma performed fantastically in IPL 2022 with 426 runs in 14 games at a strike rate of 133.33 playing for the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). One of his strong zones was putting the opponents under serious pressure from the very first ove