The pandemic has halted the sports industry like any other industry. A number of events got canceled and a series of others got postponed. Currently, the events that are getting organized, are taking place in bio-secure bubbles because of the rapid spread of the virus. The outbreak of coronavirus pushed the Asia Cup 2020 event to 2021.
According to sources, it has been postponed once again because of the rising number of coronavirus cases. The Pakistan Cricket Board released a statement on Sunday stating that the Asia Cup has now been postponed to 2022.
“PCB Chairman Ehsan Mani briefed the BoG on matters relating to the International Cricket Council as well as this year’s ICC T20 World Cup and the ACC Asia Cup, which has now been postponed to 2022,” a statement from the PCB read. The PCB has the right to organise the Asia Cup.
India won the last edition of Asia Cup in 2018
The PCB requested Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) to swap the hosting rights and SLC accepted the proposal. Hence, the Asia Cup will be played on the island. The last edition of the Asia Cup was hosted in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2018. Rohit Sharma led the Men in Blue in the absence of the regular skipper Virat Kohli. Rohit successfully guided the team to the title.
Last year, the grappling number of Covid cases compelled ICC to postpone the ICC T20 World Cup scheduled to take place in Australia. India will host it later this year while Australia will host the event in 2022. Recently, PCB had to put a hold on the Pakistan Premier League after a few players got infected by the virus. The remaining matches of Pakistan’s franchise-based tournament will be hosted in June in Karachi.
As India and Pakistan don’t engage in bilateral series, the fans need to wait till the T20 World Cup to watch the arch-rivals taking on each other.