The 2020 Emerging Nations Asia Cup, which was scheduled to take place in December 2020 in Bangladesh is most likely to be postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic and there has been no official announcement made yet by Asian Cricket Council (ACC), whose members met in an online meeting last week.
One of the significant decisions made during the meeting was that June 2021 was set as a tentative start date for the postponed Asia Cup tournament, which was originally scheduled in 2020 in Sri Lanka. The Qualifiers for the Asia Cup also needs to be completed prior to that, from which one among Singapore, Hong Kong, UAE and Kuwait will join the main draw. The qualifiers used to have a significant impact as the top three from that tournament will advance to the Emerging Nations Asia Cup tournament; however, as per the ACC website, the next edition will feature the Top 3 Associates from the ICC rankings in the main draw of the competition.
If the norm stays the same, then in all likelihood Oman, UAE and Nepal will be the Associate members, who will join the full member nations in the tournament (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh & Afghanistan). The Full members squads consist of 4 players above U23 age-group and the rest in the U23 category. Associate member nations are allowed to send their senior squad for the tournament.
Asian Cricket Council took a decision in their AGM (Annual General Meeting) in 2018 that List-A status will be given to all matches in the Emerging Nations Asia Cup tournament and it will no longer be an U-23 event, but will be counted as an full International tournament.
The 2018 edition of the tournament was jointly co-hosted by Pakistan and Sri Lanka, while the 2019 edition was hosted by Bangladesh.
