The Asia Cup 2022 is starting from August 27, in which a total of 6 teams will participate, and it will be held in the fields of the United ...
The Asia Cup 2022 is starting from August 27, in which a total of 6 teams will participate, and it will be held in the fields of the United Arab Emirates. By the way, this time the festival was to be held in Sri Lanka, but due to the political situation there, it was decided to hold the event in the grounds of the Emirates.
This is the 15th edition of the Asia Cup which has been played for the past 38 years but is being played for the second time in the T20 format. The Asia Cup was held for the first time in the short format in 2016, while this tournament has been played 13 times in the One Day International format.
The Asia Cup started in 1983 after the establishment of the Asian Cricket Council in Sharjah (United Arab Emirates). The first Asia Cup was also held in Sharjah where the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) offices were located. This council was established with the objective of promoting the game of cricket among Asian countries and thereby improving mutual relations.
At that time, 3 Asian countries namely India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were authorized to play international cricket as they were full members of the International Cricket Council (ICC). So initially these three countries continued to participate in the Asia Cup competitions.
2 years later, the second Asia Cup was played in Sri Lanka, but India boycotted the tournament due to political disputes with the host country.
Bangladesh also participated in the third Asia Cup played in 1988 and thus the number of teams increased to 4. Bangladesh was also the host of this tournament.
Then in 1990-91, India got to host, but Pakistan boycotted the tournament due to political disputes between the two countries.
After that, in 1993, the Asia Cup was to be held in Pakistan for the first time, but due to the same political disputes, this tournament was cancelled. However, 2 years later in 1995, the 5th Asia Cup was played and Sharjah got to host it for the second time. As usual 4 countries participated in it. Then the same four also participated in the 6th and 7th editions of the Asia Cup which were held in Sri Lanka in 1997 and Bangladesh in 2000 respectively.
The next 2 Asia Cup tournaments were played at 4, 4 year intervals and in both the number of teams increased from 4 to 6. These 2 additional teams were from the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong, which had received permission from the ICC to play international cricket. The first of these tournaments was played in Sri Lanka in 2004, while the 2008 tournament was hosted by Pakistan for the first time.
In 2009, the Asian Cricket Council decided that the Asia Cup would now be held every 2 years, while the ICC announced that all its events would be ODI cricket.
In 2010, the 10th edition of the Asia Cup was held in Sri Lanka and in 2012, the 11th tournament was played in Bangladesh. 4 traditional teams namely India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh participated in both of them. However, Afghanistan participated in the Asia Cup for the first time through the qualifying round in 2014. Thus, 5 teams participated in this tournament played in Bangladesh.
In 2016, for the first time, the Asia Cup was played in the format of T20 International and it was decided that now this tournament will be played alternately in both formats. This tournament was also played in Bangladesh itself and thus this country set the record of hosting 3 consecutive Asia Cup tournaments. 5 teams participated in this edition as well. The 5th team to qualify this time was from United Arab Emirates.
The next tournament which was the 14th edition of the Asia Cup was played in 2018 on the One Day International format. 6 teams participated in it. Afghanistan had received permission from the ICC to play international cricket. The sixth team was from Hong Kong, which qualified for this tournament, while the United Arab Emirates, which participated in the previous edition, could not qualify this time, but it definitely got the honor of hosting.
Actually, the 2018 event was to be hosted by India, but due to ongoing political disputes with Pakistan, the tournament had to be shifted to the United Arab Emirates.
The 2020 Asia Cup tournament was supposed to be held in Sri Lanka in September 2020, but due to the spread of the Corona virus, it was postponed and it was decided that the event would be held in June 2021. However, due to the continuous spread of Corona, it was postponed once again and it was decided that this tournament will now be held in 2022. As the 2022 Asia Cup was already hosted by Pakistan, it was decided that Sri Lanka would host the 2022 event and Pakistan would host the 2023 edition.
Later, due to Sri Lanka's political and economic crisis, the 15th Asia Cup was moved to the United Arab Emirates, but Sri Lanka will remain the host. Now this tournament will be played from August 27 to September 11 in UAE in T20 format.
In the past 14 Asia Cups, India has the honor of becoming the champion for the most number of times, having won this title 7 times. 6 times in ODI and once in T20 format. Second in this list is Sri Lanka who have won the Asia Cup ODI tournament 5 times.
Talking about the national team, Pakistan has been the winner of Asia Cup only 2 times. Pakistan won the first Asia Cup in 2000, while in 2012, Pakistan won the Asia Cup for the second time. Both these tournaments were played in the One Day International format.
India and Pakistan have been able to host the Asia Cup only once due to political reasons, while Bangladesh has the honor of hosting the most times. Bangladesh has hosted 5 Asia Cups. After that, Sri Lanka won the title 4 times and UAE 3 times.
Six teams are participating in the 15th edition of the Asia Cup, including India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and the team from Hong Kong that won the qualifying round. These teams are divided into 2 groups. Pakistan, India and Hong Kong will compete in Group 'A' while Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Afghanistan will compete in Group 'B'.
The opening match of the tournament will be played between Sri Lanka and Afghanistan on August 27 at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium. However, the match played on the second day i.e. August 28 at the same venue will be of great interest to all the fans when the 2 arch rivals Pakistan and India will be pitted against each other.
Surprisingly, India and Pakistan have not met in any of the finals of the 14 Asia Cup tournaments played so far. However, this time it is expected that these two traditional rivals will compete against each other in the final and thus the 15th Asia Cup will prove to be a memorable tournament for cricket fans.
This tournament is being played in T20 format for the second time after 2016. Although according to the latest rankings of ICC T20 International Cricket, India is ranked first and Pakistan is ranked third, but in last year's T20 World Cup in Dubai, Pakistan defeated India by 10 wickets to gain psychological advantage over their traditional rivals. has done
Also, Pakistan's performance in all formats of cricket has been very good for the last few months. In this sense too, the team looks very confident. The captain of the team, Babar Azam, is considered to be the best batsman of the modern era and has been compared to former India captain Virat Kohli, who was ranked number one until recently, but now in the latest ICC rankings. He has been relegated to 33rd place, while Babar is at number one in both the T20I and ODI rankings.
Therefore, the eyes of cricket fans around the world will be focused not only on the competition between Pakistan and India in the Asia Cup, but also on the performance of Babar and Kohli in batting.
All 6 group matches will be played till September 2. Later in the Super Four stage, there will be 6 matches while the final of the event will be played on August 11 in Dubai.
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