Challenger Cup triumph evidence of progress in Saudi cricket

Victory in the 2023 Asian Cricket Council’s Challenger Cup in Thailand has catapulted Saudi Arabia’s men’s team into unchartered waters. It also emphasised the increasing levels of competition within Asian cricket.

As recently reported, the Saudi team’s success was in a 50-over one-day international competition, rather than the Twenty20 format that has become prevalent.

The Challenger Cup is the first staging post in the ACC’s restructured three-tier pathway toward the Asia Cup 2023. It is comprised of eight teams and has been designed to provide increased opportunities for a larger number of its members to display their talents.

There are 25 members of the ACC, divided into full and associate members. India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, all Test-playing countries, have full-member status.

The UAE, Nepal, and Oman have associate status for T20 and ODI cricket and a further 15 have associate T20 status. These are Bahrain, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Iran, Kuwait, Malaysia, the Maldives, Myanmar, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Tajikistan, and Thailand.

Participation in the Challenger Cup was drawn from this last group of members. Cambodia, China, and Tajikistan did not participate, while Hong Kong, Kuwait, Qatar, Malaysia, and Singapore, were considered to be too strong. Indonesia, a member of the East Asian Pacific region, participated by invitation.

Few of the eight teams had played any 50-overs cricket since the Southeast Asian Games in 2017 and, for Saudi players, these were their first international ODIs. Bahrain and Bhutan have not played any competitive one-day cricket since the lower divisions of the International Cricket Council’s World Cricket were scrapped a decade ago.

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