Recent Cricket Updates You Need To Know

The cricket season is kicking in with two new upcoming tournaments: ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier 2019 and the 2019-20 Malta Quadrangular Series. The South Africa Tour of India 2019-20 is on their 3rd Test match with India in the lead. Here are all the recent cricket updates you need to know:

ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier 2019

On October 18, 2019, the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier will begin with the first match between Scotland and Singapore at the ICC Academy Ground in Dubai. The tournament will determine which teams will qualify for the 2020 ICC T20 World Cup in Australia. 

There will be a total of 14 countries in participation of this tournament and 51 scheduled matches. Belonging in Group A are countries:

Meanwhile, Group B is composed of:

These groups were the top teams to progress from the qualifying matches that has started since February 2018 in preparation for the upcoming T20I Qualifiers 2019. The tournament is in Twenty20 International format since the ICC appointed all men's matches to be played in full international status starting on January 1, 2019.  

In March of this year, the ICC announced that the United Arab Emirates will host the Qualifiers. Then in July, Zimbabwe was suspended from participating in the tournament and was later on replaced by Nigeria. 

Australia will be hosting the ICC Twenty20 World Cup 2020. The nine teams with the highest total cricket score at the Qualifiers will move forward to the final tournament to determine the champion. The final match between the best two teams is set to happen on November 2 at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.

South Africa Tour of India 2019-20

The tour of South Africa began on September 15 and is set to take place until October of 2019. The series between the two teams will have three Tests and three T20I matches. The Test series will carry out to the 2019-21 ICC World Test Championship. 

The two teams are already on the third Test match and India is leading with a series score of 2-0. The upcoming third Test match will take place on October 19 at the JSCA International Stadium Complex in Ranchi, India. 

For a recap of their latest match in Pune, India won by an innings and 137 runs. They won the toss and elected to bat. The total cricket score of India was 601 against South Africa's 464. 

The player of the match was India's captain Virat Kohli who scored a total of 254 runs. Blogs and websites about cricket updates and news have been praising Kohli for his excellent posture as a batsman. He consistently scored runs with his powerful batting techniques.

This match was Kohli's 50th time to captain India for Tests and he was able to score his 7,000th run. This makes him the first batsman for India to score a total of seven double centuries in Tests.

The match was clearly on India's edge as they declared a whopping 601-5. India's fast bowlers gave the South African batsmen a hard time. Upon the start of South Africa's second innings, the Proteas' Aiden Markram was dismissed before even scoring any runs. 

After this Test match, India has officially won a record total of 11 consistent Test series in their home country. The last match they lost was back in 2012-13 against England who beat them with 2-1. Now, they are renowned as a world top-ranking team in the Test format.

2019-20 Malta Quadrangular Series 

The 2019-20 Malta Quadrangular series or Valletta Cup is set to happen from October 17 to 19, 2019 in Marsa Sports Club in Malta. The upcoming tournament in T20 format will have a total of 9 matches from the 4 participating countries such as Czech Republic, Hungary, Iceland and the hosts, Malta. 

The first match of the tournament will be between Malta and Iceland on October 17, while the final match for the two best teams will be on October 20. 

The players for the Malta cricket squad are:

Meanwhile, the players for the Iceland squad will be:

The tournament has a Twenty20 International status, but Iceland is not an associate member of the ICC and Hungary is not being played by the national team, the matches of these teams will not be in the Twenty20 International status.