The Asia Cup 2023 has been, in many ways, a tournament beset with issues. Pakistan was meant to host the six-team cricket tournament, but that was thrown into disarray by India’s refusal to travel to the nation due to political tensions.
Then-Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Najam Sethi then found a solution in the form of the ‘hybrid model’ which would see some games played in Pakistan and the rest in a neutral venue – in this case, Sri Lanka.
However, despite a confirmation from the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) of the dates as well as the hybrid model, there has been no official announcement of the schedule just yet.
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This is obviously concerning, given the ICC World Cup – which is set to take place after the Asia Cup – schedule has already been announced.
Yet the reason for this delay in the schedule announcement of the Asia Cup has now been made clear, and the reason is the weather.
A BCCI official has revealed that the original plan was to hold a few matches – including the marquee India vs Pakistan game – at Colombo.
But that plan appears to be on the backburner as of now, given the fact that Colombo usually sees rain at this time of the year and thus scheduling a cricket game there at this time makes no sense.
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The official further added that the tentative schedule has been shared with the members, and that the final schedule will be out by some time this week.
Cricket fans would doubtless be hoping that the delay in this schedule announcement doesn’t get prolonged by much longer, given the waiting game that has gone on around the tournament already.
There were concerns in some quarters that the tournament might not even happen, given India were at first reluctant to accept the hybrid model proposed by Najam Sethi.
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Things got even more complicated when Sethi’s term as interim PCB chairman came to an end and he announced that he would not be in contention for the next term, this time as a full-time chairman.
This paved the way for Zaka Ashraf to return to the post, and he complicated things by saying that he would take another look at the proposed hybrid model as he was not a fan of it.
However, the ACC said the model had already been approved and there was no going back from this point onwards.
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