The
14th edition of Asia Cup of One Day Internationals (ODI) between
cricket playing nations of Asia began tonight, the 15th of September,
2018 in United Arab Emirates. UAE hosts this tournament for the third time due
to well-known reasons. In the inaugural match played at the Dubai International
stadium Bangladesh crushed Sri Lanka by 137 runs. Bangladesh, batting first,
innings was built mainly on a superlative 144 runs by Musfiqur Rahim who was
the last man out setting a competitive target of 261 runs. Sri Lanka began very
shakily and kept on losing wickets at regular intervals including a run-out, the whole team finally getting bowled out for a mere 124 . With its
string of successes in last two years Bangladesh has become the team to watch
out for in this two-week tournament. It was nice to see Lasith Malinga back in
the Sri Lanka team and also among wickets again.
Asia
Cup this year has six teams with Hong Kong joining the five full ODI members—India,
Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The tournament, normally
played in the round robin format, this time is having two groups and a Super Four.
Group A consists of India, Pakistan and Hong Kong while Group B has Sri Lanka,
Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Winners and runners-up teams of each group will go
to the Super Four stage on the basis of points at the group stage and in Super
Four all four nations will play each other with the top two teams qualifying
for the Final. There will be two venues—Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Omission of
Sharjah is perplexing which is also pointed out by Sunil Gavaskar.
After
a long while cricket lovers are set to enjoy encounters between the eternal
archrivals India and Pakistan. This rivalry becomes far more interesting with
the former ace pacer Imran Khan becoming the Prime Minister of Pakistan. The two
nations are set to meet on 19th September in Dubai for the group
match. Supposing both teams proceed to the Super Four stage which is the most
likely scenario they will meet for the second time sometime after 20th
September. If both teams turn out to be the top two teams in Super Four they
will meet for the third time in the Final on 28th September. Cricket
lovers will really relish that possibility. Of course, as we have pointed out
earlier, Bangladesh would be a tough team to overcome and Sri Lanka could come roaring
back any time.
India
has a new captain Rohit Sharma for the tournament as Virat Kohli was rested
after the Test disaster against England. India, the defending champions, has
been consistently proving its dominance in the shorter format and the absence
of Kohli is not likely to impact team performance adversely. Of course,
performance of MS Dhoni is going to be a crucial factor with wicket
keeper-batsman Dinesh Karthik also featuring in the team. Selection blues in
Team India visibly affected team performance in the England tour, and therefore
team management has to be very careful about the final eleven in each match
with a lot of options available. The omission of Rishav Pant seems illogical, because
he went from the IPL straight to the Tests.
With
more teams, interesting format and the extravaganza spreading over two weeks
Asia Cup-2018 promises to be absorbing and exciting.
