Asia Cup 2022: All you need to know about the four-team qualifying tournament before the main event on 27 August – Firstcricket News, Firstpost

2022 Asia Cup qualifiers kicked off on 20 August, Saturday between four teams – Singapore, Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Kuwait in Muscat.

The qualifiers were originally scheduled to be played in Kuala Lumpur in 2020 but were later shifted to Sri Lanka along with the main tournament.

Subsequently, owing to the economic crisis in Sri Lanka, and with the main tournament being moved to the UAE, the qualifiers were also shifted to Muscat in Oman.

The four teams will play each other in a round-robin format to decide the qualifier that joins India and Pakistan in group B of the Asia Cup

Here are all the details about the qualifying tournament –

Which teams will participate in the Asia Cup 2022 qualifiers, and how were they selected?

Singapore and Hong Kong were selected based on their performance in the Eastern Regional Qualifiers as they finished as the top two teams in the regional qualifiers.

Similarly, UAE and Kuwait were the top two teams in the Western Regional Qualifiers and were selected for the qualifiers.

Where will the Asia Cup 2022 qualifiers be played?

All the matches of the qualifiers will be played at the Oman Cricket Academy Ground 1 in Muscat.

What will be the format of the Asia Cup 2022 qualifiers, and how many matches will be played?

A total of six matches will be played in the qualifying tournament. Each team will the other three once in a round-robin format. The top-ranked team on the basis of points, or Net Run Rate (NRR) (in case of similar points) will qualify for the main tournament. There will be no final match played between the top two teams.

Who will the qualifying team play in the main tournament?

The qualifying team will join the high octane group of India and Pakistan in the main tournament.

What is the schedule of the Asia Cup 2022 qualifiers?

20 August 2022, Saturday – 19.30 IST – Hong Kong vs Singapore

21 August 2022, Sunday – 19.30 IST – Kuwait vs UAE

22 August 2022, Monday – 19.30 IST – Singapore vs UAE

23 August 2022, Tuesday – 19.30 IST – Hong Kong vs Kuwait

24 August 2022, Wednesday – 16.30 IST – Singapore vs Kuwait

24 August 2022, Wednesday – 19.30 IST – UAE vs Hong Kong

Where can you Live stream the Asia Cup 2022 qualifiers?

The Asia Cup 2022 qualifiers will be broadcasted live on the Star Sports Network. The matches can also be live streamed online on FanCode App and Website.

Squads:

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

Singapore: Amjad Mahboob (c), Vinoth Baskaran, Surendran Chandramohan, Aman Desai, Aritra Dutta, Rezza Gaznavi, Neil Karnik, Anantha Krishna, Arjun Mutreja, Rohan Rangarajan, Manpreet Sing, Aryaman Sunil, Navin Param, Janak Prakash, Akshay Puri

Kuwait: Mohammed Aslam (c), Nawaf Ahmed, Mohammad Amin, Meet Bhavsar, Adnan Idrees, Muhammad Kashif, Shiraz Khan, Sayed Monib, Edson Silva, Bilal Tahir, Ali Zaheer Usman Patel, Yasin Patel, Shahrukh Quddus, Ravija Sandaruwan, Mohamed Shafeeq, Haroon Shahid

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

Team form:

United Arab Emirates: UAE starts as the favourites for the tournament. However, they will play under a new captain as the earlier captain Ahmed Raza was removed as captain just a day before the tournament. If the team is divided into two groups of sorts due to such an abrupt decision, they might look out of their place in the qualifying tournament.

Singapore: Singapore were the Eastern Regional Qualifiers champions, but will play the qualifying tournament without their star player Tim David, who is trying his luck to be part of the Australian set-up.

Singapore’s latest outing in the short format was at the second T20 global qualifier in Zimbabwe last month, where they failed miserably and lost all their matches.

Kuwait: Kuwait created a sort of an upset as they finished second in the Western Regional Qualifiers, ahead of Oman. They will be high on confidence coming on the back of a 5-0 whitewash of Bahrain

Hong Kong: Hong Kong was a part of the 2018 Asia Cup and would prove to be a strong competition against the other three. They also gave a major upset scar to India at the 2018 tournament. However, since then, they lost their captain Anshuman Rath to the Indian domestic circuit and have struggled a bit in recent times.

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