UAE and Oman to host Men’s Asia Cup 2022 and Asia Cup Qualifier

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) will host the 2022 ACC (Asian Cricket Council) Men’s Asia Cup tournament from 27th August – 11th September in United Arab Emirates, which was confirmed by ACC on 27th July 2022. Originally scheduled to be held in September 2020, the tournament was postponed in July 2020 and then again to June 2021 owing to COVID-19 pandemic, but now it has been confirmed to take place in September 2022 before the 2022 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in Australia and will be played in the T20 format.

The tournament will feature Men’s teams from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and a qualifier nation from the Asia Cup qualifiers. The qualifier event is now scheduled to take place from August 20th – 26th, which was announced in the ACC Annual General Meeting (AGM) held on 19th March 2022 in Sri Lanka. The qualifier will see Men’s teams from United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Hong Kong and Kuwait compete for the lone qualification spot into the main draw of Asia Cup. Josh Ball from SCMP have learnt that the qualifier event will be hosted by Oman Cricket (OC) at Al Amerat. Singapore and Hong Kong qualified from the ACC Eastern Region T20I tournament held in Thailand in March 2020, while United Arab Emirates and Kuwait qualified from the ACC Western Region T20I tournament held in UAE in February 2020.

The winner of the qualifier will join India and Pakistan in the group stage, with the host’s along with Bangladesh and Afghanistan making up the other group. While UAE have qualified for the 2022 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup from the Global qualifier A event held in February 2022 in Oman, Singapore and Hong Kong could not make it to the semifinal stage of the Global qualifier B event held in July 2022 in Zimbabwe.

Jay Shah, President of ACC said in the official press release “Every effort was made to host the Asia Cup in Sri Lanka and the decision to shift the venue to the UAE was taken after much deliberation. The UAE will be the new venue while Sri Lanka will continue to retain hosting rights. This edition of the Asia Cup is extremely important as it will help Asian nations prepare for the ICC World Cup, and I thank the SLC and the Emirates Cricket Board for their understanding and cooperation.”

2022 Men’s Asia Cup Qualifier Squads

Kuwait: Mohammed Aslam (Captain), Adnan Idrees, Bilal Khan, Ali Zaheer, Edson Silva, Haroon Shahid, Kashif Shareef, Meet Bhavsar, Mohammad Shafeeq, Nawaf Ahmed, Muhammad Amin, Ravija de Silva, Sayed Monib, Shahrukh Quddus, Shiraz Khan, Usman Gani and Yash Patel

UAE: CP Rizwan (Captain), Chirag Suri, Ahmed Raza, Fahad Nawaz, Vriitya Aravind, Basil Hameed, Rohan Mustafa, Muhammad Waseem, Sultan Ahmad, Zawar Farid, Kashif Daud, Karthik Meiyappan, Zahoor Khan, Junaird Siddique, Aryan Lakra, Alishan Sharafu and Sabil Ali

Hong Kong: Nizakat Khan (Captain), Kinchit Shah, Aizaz Khan, Zeeshan Ali, Yasim Murtaza, Haroon Arshad, Ehsan Khan, Ghazanfar Mohammad, Ayush Shukla, Babar Hayat, Aftab Hussain, Scott McKechnie, Ahan Trivedi, Wajid Shah, Waheed Mohammad, Dhananjay Rao and Ateeq Iqbal

Singapore: Amjad Mahboob (Captain), Rezza Gaznavi, Janak Prakash, Manpreet Singh, Vinoth Baskaran, Aryaman Uchil, Surendran Chandramohan, Rohan Rangarajan, Akshay Ronak Puri, Aman Desai, Jeevan Santhanam, Vihaan Maheshwari, Aryaveer Chaudhary, Aritra Dutta, Avi Dixit, Adwitya Bhargava and Abdul Rahman Bhadelia

2022 Men’s Asia Cup Qualifier Schedule

20th August 2022: Singapore vs Hong Kong (Scorecard) @6pm

21st August 2022: Kuwait vs UAE (Scorecard) @6pm

22nd August 2022: UAE vs Singapore (Scorecard) @6pm

23rd August 2022: Hong Kong vs Kuwait (Scorecard) @6pm

24th August 2022: Kuwait vs Singapore (Scorecard) @3pm ; UAE vs Hong Kong (Scorecard) @7pm

2022 Men’s Asia Cup Squads

Afghanistan: Mohammad Nabi (Captain), Najibullah Zadran, Afsar Zazai, Azmatullah Omarzai, Farid Malik, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Hashmatullah Shahidi, Hazratullah Zazai, Ibrahim Zadran, Karim Janat, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Najibullah Zadran, Naveen ul Haq, Noor Ahmad, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Rashid Khan and Samiullah Shinwari

Pakistan: Babar Azam (Captain), Shadab Khan, Asif Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, Iftikhar Ahmed, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Rizwan, Mohammad Wasim Jnr), Naseem Shah, Shahnawaz Dahani and Usman Qadir

Sri Lanka: Dasun Shanka (Captain), Danushka Gunathilaka, Pathum Nisanka, Kusal Mendis, Charith Asalanka, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Ashen Bandara, Dhananjaya de Silva, Wanindu Hasaranga, Maheesh Theekshana, Jeffrey Vandersay, Praveen Jayawickrama, Chamika Karunaratne, Dilshan Madushanka, Matheesha Pathirana, Nuwanidu Fernando, Dushmantha Chameera and Dinesh Chandimal

India: Rohit Sharma (Captain), KL Rahul, Arshdeep Singh, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kuwar, Ravi Bishnoi, Avesh Khan, Deepak Hooda and Yuzvendra Chahal

Bangladesh: Shakib Al Hasan (Captain), Anamul Haque, Mushfiqur Rahim, Afif Hossain, Mosaddek Hossain, Mahmudullah, Mahedi Hasan, Mohammad Saifuddin, Hasan Mahmud, Mustafizur Rahman, Nasum Ahmed, Sabbir Rahman, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Ebadot Hossain, Parvez Hossain, Nurul Hasan and Taskin Ahmed

2022 Men’s Asia Cup Schedule

27th August 2022: Sri Lanka vs Afghanistan (Scorecard)

28th August 2022: India vs Pakistan (Scorecard)

30th August 2022: Afghanistan vs Bangladesh (Scorecard)

31st August 2022: Hong Kong vs India (Scorecard)

01st September 2022: Bangladesh vs Sri Lanka (Scorecard)

02nd September 2022: Pakistan vs Hong Kong (Scorecard)

03rd/4th September 2022: Super 4 matches

06th/07th September 2022: Super 4 matches

08th/09th September 2022: Super 4 matches

11th September 2022: Final