The Asia Cup 2022 is set to commence on August 27, Saturday, at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium with Sri Lanka, who are official hosts of the tournament, taking on Afghanistan in the tournament opener.
The Asia Cup 2022 was initially to be played in Sri Lanka, but was moved to the UAE last month because of the ongoing economic crisis in the island nation. The SLC will still act as the host and will have the hosting rights for the competition.
India are the defending champion having won the tournament in 2018 and before that in 2016. While the 2018 tournament was in the ODI format, now it will be in the T20 format to allow the teams better preparation opportunities for the ICC T20 World Cup 2022 slated for October-November in Australia.
Rohit Sharma’s side will kick off their Asia Cup 2022 campaign against arch-rivals Pakistan on Sunday, August 28. This will be the first match between the two neighbouring nations since Babar Azam’s team thrashed the Men In Blue by 10 wickets at the T20 World Cup last year.
India failed to reach the semis while Pakistan were knocked out by Australia in the T20 World Cup 2021 semi-final.
Like 2018, six teams will contest in the main competition this time in the Asia Cup 2022. The six teams are divided into two groups with India, Pakistan and a qualifying team in Group A; Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Afghanistan form Group B.
Each team plays the other once in the group stage with the top two teams from each group advancing to the Super 4 round. The top 2 teams from Super 4 will qualify for the final on September 11 in Dubai.
The qualifying round to determine the sixth team will begin on August 20 in Oman. The teams competing for a place in Group A – along with India and Pakistan – are UAE, Kuwait, Singapore and Hong Kong.
At the time of writing, only two team squads are known for the Asia Cup 2022 squads.
Group A
India: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Deepak Hooda, Dinesh Karthik, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravi Bishnoi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, Avesh Khan. Standbys: Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, Deepak Chahar.
Pakistan: Babar Azam (c), Shadab Khan, Asif Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, Iftikhar Ahmed, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Rizwan, Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shahnawaz Dahani, Usman Qadir.
Qualifier: Final team in Group A yet to be determined
Group B
Afghanistan: Squad yet to be named
Bangladesh: Squad yet to be named
Sri Lanka: Squad yet to be named
