Nabi and Virat Kohli both have the most T20I Man of the Match awards.
Former Afghanistan captain Mohammad Nabi used to lead the tally of ‘most number of Man of the Matches award in T20Is’; he had 12 awards in total. That is until Virat Kohli tied his tally with his 94-not-out-in-50-balls performance that helped his team beat the West Indies. He was awarded Man of the Match which, coincidentally, was also his 12th award.
Nabi, who received his 12th award in September, was happy to share his achievements with Kohli. Speaking in an interview, the Afghan all-rounder said that he was proud to share the achievement with the world’s top batsman.
‘Look, India has been playing so many matches. World’s all teams want to play against India. Whereas, our team has limited opportunities to play against all teams at regular intervals and this will enable Kohli to surpass the record soon’.
In terms of amount of games played to achieve this feat, there isn’t that much of a difference between the two players. It took Nabi 75 games while it took Kohli 74 games - a game less. Shahid Afridi, former Pakistan captain, sits in third with 11 MoM awards from 99 games.
Nabi is also looking forward to playing against Kohli. ‘I don’t know when I will get a chance against Kohli to play…maybe in the World Cup or the Asia Cup’, he said. ‘Getting Player of the Match in any format is a good recognition, though in Test matches more players get a chance as the Test marches are played for five days. In limited over games all players may not get the opportunity to compete for the award’.
Afghanistan isn’t set to play until October 2020, where they will participate in the T20 World Cup. Their opponents are yet to be decided. To find out more about Afghanistan’s upcoming matches, visit Betwala’s page.
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