Batters flex their muscles in record-breaking season of SMAT

The final of the 18th Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy encapsulated the tournament. Champions Jharkhand, batting first, piled on 262 for 3, sealing their maiden T20 title. The performance underlined the state of India's T20 batting and showcased the vast reserves of talent beneath the national setup.

This edition rewrote almost every major batting record in the tournament's history, highlighting the depth of India's domestic pipeline. Power hitting and fearless intent were on display throughout, reflecting modern T20 demands.

The latter stages coincided with the IPL 2026 auction, where uncapped Indian talents emerged as headline acts. Rajasthan's Kartik Sharma and Uttar Pradesh's Prashant Veer attracted record-breaking bids for uncapped players, underlining how closely IPL franchises now value SMAT performances.

Once a domestic steppingstone, the tournament is increasingly a breeding ground for India's next T20 stars, steadily mirroring and shaping the future of the Indian Premier League and the national T20 setup.

Batting records torn apart in a run-glutted SMAT 2025

The 2025 edition further cemented the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy as a barometer of India's white-ball batting depth. With a tournament scoring rate of 8.59 runs per over, it became the most batter-friendly edition ever, completing a hat-trick of consecutive seasons with an economy north of eight.

Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy – Most Batting-Friendly Editions

Batters hit 20 individual centuries—the most ever in any T20 tournament—and 1884 sixes, a T20 record. Three teams crossed the 100-sixes mark: Punjab (136), Jharkhand (114), and Haryana (109). Punjab hit a six every 8.6 balls, the best rate ever by a team in a T20 tournament with eight or more matches.

Best Balls/Six Ratio in a T20 Competition

Punjab and Jharkhand lead the charge

Punjab were at the forefront of dynamic batting. In ten innings, they crossed 200 seven times. They scored at 11.24 runs per over, becoming the first team ever to breach the 11-runs-per-over mark in a T20 competition featuring at least eight matches. Champions Jharkhand weren't far behind, scoring at 10.36.

Highest Scoring Rate in a T20 Tournament

The batting boom wasn't limited to outliers. All top 20 run-getters crossed 300 runs, and 17 did so at a strike rate of 150 or more. In total, 85% of players with 300+ runs struck at 150+, the highest proportion ever recorded in a T20 tournament.

Strike Rate of Top 20 Run-Getters in SMAT 2025/26

A telling theme was the coming of age of younger batters. Six of the tournament's 20 centuries were scored by players under 23, the most in a single SMAT edition. Under-23 batters in the top seven averaged 27 at a strike rate of 140. This dominance translated to opportunity: at the IPL 2026 auction, nine uncapped domestic players fetched bids exceeding ₹1 crore, all but one aged 23 or below.

Major highlights from the tournament

• 517 runs by Ishan Kishan is the third-most in a single SMAT edition. He scored them at a strike rate of 197.32, the highest ever for anyone with 400+ runs.
• Kishan's 101 in the final was his fifth SMAT century, joint-most with Abhishek Sharma. Abhishek's 148 off 52 balls against Bengal is the second-highest individual score in tournament history.
• 304 runs and 18 wickets by Player of the Tournament Anukul Roy makes him just the second player with the double of 300+ runs and 15+ wickets in a single edition.
• 22 wickets each taken by Jharkhand's Sushant Mishra and Rajasthan's Ashok Sharma is the highest ever in a single edition.
• 6/9 by Madhya Pradesh's Arshad Khan against Chandigarh are now the best bowling figures in SMAT history.
• Four targets in excess of 220 were successfully chased in SMAT 2025; there were only two such instances in the previous 18 editions combined. Jharkhand's successful chase of 236 against Punjab is the highest in tournament history.

Highest Successful Chases in SMAT