Asia Cup postponed once again, to be held in 2022 due to Covid-19 pandemic: Report

April 13, 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on sporting schedules all over the world. Several events were cancelled, a number of others were postponed.
Even those that have been taking place, happen in bio-secure bubbles because of the threat of the virus. The Asia Cup 2020 was also one of the events to have been postponed to 2021 after the virus outbreak last year. It has now been learned that the tournament has been postponed again because of the virus.
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) released a statement on Sunday suggesting that the Asia Cup has now been postponed to 2022. The PCB holds the rights to organise the tournament and has been mulling Pakistan and UAE as the two venues for the event.
The PCB then offered Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) the option to swap hosting rights for the tournament. The proposal was accepted and the Asia Cup this year was now supposed to be played in the Island country.
With the world still grappling with Covid-19, the decision to postpone the Asia Cup was taken.
“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 said.

The absence of Asia Cup means that fans will possibly only get to see an India vs Pakistan event in the ICC T20 World Cup this year. Because of the poor political relations between the two countries, bilateral cricket series between the two countries have been absent from the calendars.
It was the Indian cricket team that had won the tournament last time. The Asia Cup was last held in 2018 in UAE where Rohit Sharma had led the Men in Blue while regular skipper Virat Kohli had taken a break. India is also the team with the most number of Asia Cup victories (7) in the tournament’s history.