Zeeshan Maqsood of Oman named ICC Associate Player of the Year

The governing body of world cricket, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has officially announced its Men’s Associate Cricketer of the Year. While there were many potential players who proved their mettle from the associate nations in the year gone by, the top honour went to Oman’s Zeeshan Maqsood for some of his outstanding achievements and memorable performances in the year 2021.

Zeeshan had a dream run last year on the 22 yards both with the bat as well as with the ball in hand as he amassed 316 runs averaging  31.60 and at the same time, also registered 21 scalps at an average of  18.80 in the 13 international matches that he had featured in for the Middle Eastern country. His precious middle-order contributions combined with providing some breakthroughs with his left-arm orthodox on a consistent basis were good enough to name him the ICC Men’s Associate Cricketer of the Year.

Zeeshan Maqsood’s best performances in 2021

While he had scored impactful half-centuries against the associates USA, and, Namibia where he was also consistent with the ball, his best performances in the year gone back were during the group stages of the ICC T20 World Cup 2021 that were held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last October-November.

The group stage matches were contested at Oman and Zeeshan Maqsood made the most of his all-round abilities on home soil as he rattled PNG’s middle and lower order in the tournament opener on October 17 to finish with match-winning figures of 4/20 as the hosts went on to register an emphatic 10-wicket win. Maqsood was adjudged the Player of the Match for his excellent bowling spell.

However, he could only register a solitary scalp in the next game against Bangladesh and went wicketless in the must-win encounter against Scotland. Even though the all-rounder made up for it with the bat by scoring 34, it was not enough as Oman were bundled out for a paltry 122 which was chased down by the Scottish team by eight wickets and three overs to spare thereby, knocking them out of the tournament.

Oman failed to advance to the Super 12 stage as they finished third in the group with just a win and two points to their tally.