It was not until the end of July that the Asian Cricket Council announced the schedule for this month’s men’s T20 Asia Cup. The tournament had remained under a cloud of uncertainty following a four-day aerial war between Pakistan and India in May, and it was only after a conclave of the heads of the ACC that the organisation’s president, Mohsin Naqvi, who is also Pakistan Cricket Board chairperson, announced that the continental championship would be played.
Despite the announcement of a detailed schedule the next day, doubts remained. There had been calls in India to boycott matches against Pakistan after an Indian team had forfeited their group-stage and semi-final matches against a Pakistani side in the World Championship of Legends, a competition for retired players, in July.
The dust, however, settled late last month when India’s Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports greenlit their sporting teams’ participation in multi-team events that included Pakistan.
Such are the new realities.
Cricket, of late, has become hostage to the India-Pakistan geopolitical tensions and the fate of global and continental competitions is settled at the eleventh hour. The schedule for the ICC Champions Trophy – held in Pakistan earlier this year – was announced less than two months out of the opening fixture, and, in 2023, the match details for the 50-over World Cup were made public only 100 days out of the tournament.
But, from Tuesday, cricket will take centre stage as Afghanistan and Hong Kong play the tournament opener in Abu Dhabi. India, the hosts of this Asia Cup, will play the UAE on Wednesday in Dubai.
Pakistan’s first match is on Friday against Oman in Dubai, which also hosts the final of this 19-match tournament on 28 September.
Wait! Why is the tournament being played in the UAE when India are the hosts?
The new realities, remember?
In the lead-up to the aforementioned Champions Trophy, Pakistan and India agreed to host each other on neutral venues in multi-team tournaments for the next three years due to the ever-increasing geopolitical tensions between them.
Since India had to stage Pakistan’s matches out of their country, the Board for Control of Cricket in India and ACC agreed to move the entire tournament to the UAE, with the BCCI retaining the hosting rights.
Pakistan provided Dubai as a neutral venue for India earlier this year when they hosted the Champions Trophy, the first major tournament in the country since the 1996 World Cup.
India will host Pakistan’s women’s team in Colombo in the 50-over women’s World Cup, which begins immediately after the Asia Cup. Sri Lanka will also be the venue for Pakistan’s T20 World Cup matches – again hosted by India – next year.
It is, however, not the first time that the tensions between the two neighbours have moved the Asia Cup out of India. The 2018 50-over Asia Cup had to be shifted to the UAE due to similar reasons. Coincidentally, the ACC presidency at the time also sat with the PCB.
The last T20 Asia Cup, in 2022, was to be played in Sri Lanka but was moved to the UAE because of the economic and political turmoil in the country.
There is also a strong feeling among the ACC members that the UAE serves as a perfect venue for the Asia Cup since the country boasts large diasporas from every nook and corner of Asia, which results in healthy support for each side and helps with decent crowd turnover.
Dubai hosts a total of 11 matches, and the remaining eight will be played in Abu Dhabi. Pakistan will play all their games in Dubai.
You mentioned that the 2018 Asia Cup was an ODI tournament. Are there two formats of this tournament?
Correct. The ACC, since 2016, has aligned its calendar with the ICC’s to provide more context to its tournaments and better preparation to the teams for the global tournaments.
The first T20 Asia Cup was played in Bangladesh in 2016, weeks out of the T20 World Cup in India, and the second in 2022 ahead of the T20 World Cup in Australia. With the next year’s T20 World Cup in February-March, this tournament presents teams a crucial opportunity to finesse their combinations in a high-pressure tournament environment.
The 2018 and 2023 editions of the tournament were played in ODI format, in line with the 2019 and 2023 50-over World Cups.
How many teams will play this Asia Cup, and what is the format of the tournament?
There is a bump of two teams this time around. So, for the first time, the tournament is being contested by eight teams.
The five full members – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka – are joined by Hong Kong, Oman, and the UAE, the top three sides from last year’s ACC Premier Cup, which served as a qualifier for this tournament.
The eight teams are equally divided into two groups – A and B. Each team will play the other three teams in its group once, and the top two sides from the two groups will qualify for the Super Four round.
The Super Four will also be played in a round-robin format, and the top two teams will play in the final.
We have seen Pakistan and India come face to face twice in Asia Cups of late. What are the chances of the same happening again?
Let us start with how the two groups look.
India, Oman, Pakistan, and the UAE are in Group A. Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, and Sri Lanka are in Group B.
It is not a coincidence that two weaker teams are drawn in the group that has India and Pakistan, and the three other stronger sides in this tournament find themselves in the same group.
The draws in the ICC and ACC tournaments are never televised, and the global and continental championships are especially designed to ensure at least one match between these two sides.
The reality is that India v Pakistan fills coffers. The money earned from this match is distributed among cricket boards around the world at the ICC and ACC levels. So, no cricket board really protests about the draws.
Pakistan and India will play the group stage match on 14 September. Considering all goes as usual and there are no upsets, the two teams will meet again in the Super Four A1 v A2 match on 21 September. Interestingly, 21 September this year is coming on a Sunday. (winks)
The two teams can meet for the third time if they make it to the final. They, however, have never faced off in an Asia Cup final.
How have the teams fared in T20 Asia Cups so far?
The first men’s T20 Asia Cup, in 2016, was won by India, who comfortably beat the hosts Bangladesh in the final.
Pakistan were stunned by Bhanuka Rajapaksa’s dazzling 71 not out off 45 in the final of the last T20 Asia Cup in 2022 and lost to Sri Lanka by 23 runs.
India have the best men’s T20 Asia Cup record, winning eight of their 10 matches. The next are title-defenders Sri Lanka, who have won six out of 10. Pakistan are the only other team to have played 10 men’s T20 Asia Cup matches, and they have won half of them.
Afghanistan have won four out of eight. Bangladesh and the UAE have three wins from seven games each. Oman have one win from three games. Hong Kong are yet to register a win in the tournament.
Team record in men’s T20 Asia Cup by Dawn
How have the eight teams prepared for this month’s competition?
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the UAE enter the Asia Cup fresh from the tri-series in Sharjah. The series was organised specifically to help the three sides prepare for this tournament after the UAE had emerged as the venue for the Asia Cup.
Afghanistan were supposed to tour Pakistan for a bilateral T20I series, but the two boards decided to move those matches to the UAE to acclimatise to the conditions in this part of the world. UAE, the new hosts, were included as the third team, as a bilateral series was turned into a trilateral affair.
India, the T20 world champions, last played a T20I on 2 February 2025. They have played only five matches in the format this year in a home series against England that they won 4-1. Prior to the team’s arrival in the UAE, most of their players had been playing red ball cricket at home in the Duleep Trophy.
Bangladesh, over the last week, hosted the Netherlands for a three-match T20I series in Sylhet and won it 2-0, with the third match getting washed out.
Sri Lanka arrive in the UAE from Zimbabwe, where they played the home team in two ODIs and three T20Is.
Oman, captained by Jatinder Singh and coached by former Sri Lankan batter Duleep Mendis, announced four uncapped players in their squad for this tournament. They enter this tournament after playing a domestic T20 competition recently. Their last international outing was in May in the men’s Cricket World Cup League 2.
Hong Kong, in July, named Kaushal Silva, a former Sri Lankan wicketkeeper-batter, as their head coach, and this Asia Cup will be his first assignment. They also have a new captain in Yasim Murtaza, who has played for Rawalpindi in Pakistan’s domestic first-class, List A, and T20 competitions. Hong Kong lost to Malaysia in the title round of the Asia Pacific Cricket Champions Trophy in Singapore.
