All-time top 5 bowling performances in Asia Cup
The wait is almost over as the biggest cricketing festival of Asia is all set to take the field in UAE from 15 September. This is the third Asia Cup that is set to be held in UAE and the first outside the subcontinent after 1995 edition.
All of five Asian Test playing nations will participate in this tournament and Hong Kong will also join them as they won the recently concluded Asia Cup qualifier in Malaysia. These six teams are divided into two groups. Defending champion India in group A with Pakistan and Hong Kong and runners-up Bangladesh in group B with Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. Tigers will take the field against Lions in the opening day of the tournament.
Now, on the eve of a new edition of Asia Cup, we had a deep look at the bowling performances in this tournament and found some exciting stats. Here we tried to sort out the all-time top five bowling performances in Asia Cup.
#5 Muttiah Muralitharan, 5 for 31, against Bangladesh
The Sri Lankan legend Muralitharan is the holder of the world record of taking most scalps in ODI history. He took 534 wickets playing 350 ODIs. So, his presence in the history of best bowling performances in Asia cup is an inevitable affair.
Muralitharan took five wickets against Bangladesh back in 2008 at Karachi, Pakistan, just conceding 31 runs with a maiden to his name.
Sri Lanka posted a huge total of 328 runs on that match with the help of two centuries by legendary Lankan-duo Sanath Jayasuriya and Kumar Sangakkara. They made an opening stand of 201 runs.
While chasing this huge total Bangladesh got packed within 38 overs and 3 balls just scoring 174 runs. Bangladesh lost the match by a big margin of 158 runs. They were outplayed by Muralitharan as he took half of their batsmen.