Asia Cup 2022: Asian Cricket Council confirms dates, tournament to be played in T20 format

The Asian Cricket Council Asia Cup has confirmed that Asia Cup 2022 will be held in Sri Lanka from the 27th of August to the 11th of September in T20 Format. This will be only the 2nd time that the Asia Cup will be played in T20 format after its first edition in 2016, in which India won.

This Asia cup will see a total of six teams take part, with Afghanistan, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka occupying the five spots, leaving four teams to battle out for the remaining one. UAE and Kuwait from the Western Region and Singapore and Hong Kong from the Eastern region will battle it out for the spot in the event. The qualifiers are scheduled to take place from the 20th of August.

"The Asia Cup 2022 (T20 Format) will be held in Sri Lanka from 27 August to 11 September later this year. The Qualifiers for the same will be played from 20 August 2022 onwards. ACC would like to congratulate Qatar Cricket Association, whose membership has been upgraded from Associate to ACC Full Member status." the statement read. 

Asia Cup 2022: India, Sri Lanka among most successful teams

In total the Asian Cricket Council has hosted 14 editions of the completion (13 ODI and 1 T20), India currently holds the most titles having won it on seven occasions, while Sri Lanka have won five with Pakistan winning the remaining two. The 2016, Asia Cup T20 final, which was the only one that saw India beat Bangladesh by eight wickets, with the most recent edition in 2018 (ODI) saw India beat Bangladesh in the finals by three wickets. 

The Asia Cup tournament is hosted every two years but the 2020 edition was cancelled owing to the spread of COVID-19. The governing body pushed the event to June 2021 to be played in Sri Lanka, but the re-emergence of a stronger variant of the virus meant the organisers once again put the event off. The event is now scheduled to take place in Sri Lanka late this year with the ODI event scheduled in Pakistan next year.

Image: Twitter/ Asian Cricket Council