Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT) 2025: History, Past Winners, and Player Stats

Currently, the young players of the Indian T-20 cricket team have created a stir in world cricket. Despite the retirement of big players like Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli from T20, the young players have handled the Indian T20 team very carefully and have worked to reach new dimensions. 

Today, all the top-order batsmen of the Indian T20 team have performed very well in international cricket. There have been two major reasons behind the success of Indian cricket in this format: the first is the Indian Premier League (IPL), and the second is the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT). 

While IPL gives young players recognition as new talent on a big stage, the Indian domestic T20 competition Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, has done a great job of taking players to the IPL. 

SMAT brings all the domestic players to the platform where their talent can be recognised by the IPL franchise. This is the tournament that helps in grooming the best players so that they can perform better at the international level.

There is also a reason for Indian fans to be happy, as this domestic T20 competition is all set for its 18th edition from November 26. 

While the final match of the tournament will be played on 18 December 2025, a total of 125 matches will be played in this tournament. 

A total of 38 teams representing different states and regions from across the country will participate in this tournament.

The 38 teams are divided into two categories: Elite and Plate. The top 32 teams will be divided into four groups of eight teams each. The top two teams from each group will qualify for the quarter-finals.

Meanwhile, the remaining six teams will play in the Plate Division. Teams will play against each other once, and at the end of the group stage, the top two teams will qualify for the Plate Final and be promoted to the Elite Division.

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Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT): History

The Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy is a domestic Twenty20 cricket championship in India, organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). It is named after former Test cricketer Syed Mushtaq Ali.

Originally known as the Inter-State T20 Championship, it was inaugurated by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for the 2006–07 season.

So far, the tournament has featured teams from the Ranji Trophy, except for 2016–17, when the BCCI restarted the competition using regional teams like the Duleep Trophy. But in 2017, BCCI returned to the Ranji teams.

The format began with a round-robin stage with teams divided into regional groups, with the top teams from each group qualifying for the knockout stage, which culminated in a final.

In 2006–07, Tamil Nadu, under the captaincy of Dinesh Karthik, won its first tournament. The 2024 tournament was won by Mumbai, who defeated Madhya Pradesh in the final. Manish Pandey is the only captain in this tournament who has led his team Karnataka to two consecutive title wins.

Apart from Manish Pandey, Dinesh Karthik and Manoj Tiwary have also led their teams to two title wins, though not in consecutive years.

Tamil Nadu has been the most successful team, having won the trophy three times. Punjab has won the title once and finished runner-up four times. The number of competing teams in the tournament was 27 in the past, while currently (2025), there are 38.

Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT): Player Stats

Like every tournament, the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy has also witnessed some impressive performances by players and has created some impressive records. 

While Harpreet Singh is the highest run scorer of the tournament with 2634 runs, Siddharth Kaul is the highest wicket taker of the tournament with 120 wickets. 

Apart from this, Indian star batsman Tilak Verma, playing for Saurashtra last year, scored 151 runs in 67 balls against Meghalaya, which became the highest score of this tournament.

Top 5 highest Run scorers in Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT):

Player	Match	Runs	HS	Average	Strike Rate
Harpreet Singh	90	2634	92*	37.09	125.13
Virat Singh	83	2417	103*	36.62	129.25
Kedar Devdhar	80	2282	100	30.83	120.80
Mandeep Singh	100	2250	99*	36.88	134.16
Aditya Tare	92	2247	82	33.53	135.44

Top 5 Highest Wicket Takers in Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT):

Player	Match	Wicket	BBI	Average	Econ.
Siddharth Kaul	87	120	5/12	18.25	7.02
Jaydev Unadkat	80	116	4/5	17.91	6.80
Piyush Chawla	89	113	4/12	20.33	6.79
Lukman Meriwala	71	108	5/8	16.67	7.18
Chama Milind	73	104	5/8	18.72	7.52

Highest Scores for Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT):

Player	Team	HS	Strike Rate	Opponent	Year
Tilak Varma	Hyderabad	151	225.37	Meghalaya	2024
Shreyas Iyer	Mumbai	147	267.27	Sikkim	2019
Punit Bisht	Meghalaya	146*	286.27	Mizoram	2021
Mohammed Azharuddin	Kerala	137*	253.70	Mumbai	2021
Bhanu Pania	Baroda	134*	262.74	Sikkim	2024

Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT): ALL Winners

Year	Winner	Winning Captain	Runner Up
2006-07	Tamilnadu	Dinesh Karthik	Punjab
2009-10	Maharashtra	Rohit Motwani	Hyderabad
2010-11	Bengal	Manoj Tiwari	Madhya Pradesh
2011-12	Baroda	Pinal Shah	Punjab
2012-13	Gujrat	Parthiv Patel	Punjab
2013-14	Baroda	Aditya Waghmode	Uttar Pradesh
2014-15	Gujrat	Manpreet Juneja	Punjab
2015-16	Uttar Pradesh	Suresh Raina	Baroda
2016-17	East Zone	Manoj Tiwari	Central Zone
2017-18	Delhi	Pardeep Sangwan	Rajasthan
2018-19	Karnataka	Manish Pandey	Maharashtra
2019	Karnataka	Manish Pandey	Tamilnadu
2020	Tamilnadu	Dinesh Karthik	Baroda
2021	Tamilnadu	Vijay Shankar	Karnataka
2022	Mumbai	Ajinkya Rahane	Himachal Pradesh
2023	Punjab	Mandeep Singh	Baroda
2024	Mumbai	Shreyas Iyer	Madhya Pradesh

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