COLOMBO: Pakistan will jointly host this year’s 50-over Asia Cup tournament with Sri Lanka, organisers said Thursday, in a compromise aimed at forestalling a tit-for-tat boycott involving India.
Neighbours India and Pakistan have not met on either side’s soil in a bilateral series since 2012, and only play each other in international tournaments on neutral grounds.
The Pakistan Cricket Board had threatened to boycott this year’s ODI World Cup in India, which is due to start in October and its schedule awaited, if its Indian counterpart refused to play in Pakistan. The six-nation Asia Cup will be played between August 31 and September 17, an Asian Cricket Council (ACC) statement said.
“The tournament will be hosted in a hybrid model with four matches being held in Pakistan, and the remaining nine matches being played in Sri Lanka,” it added.
The release did not mention the venues for the tournament or which team will play where but it is understood that India’s matches will be held in the island nation. Oman Cricket chief and ACC vice-president Pankaj Khimji intervened to broker the compromise between the two sides, according to media reports. India and Pakistan are bitter political rivals and the nuclear-armed nations have fought three wars since being carved out of the subcontinent’s partition in 1947.
Any cricket match between India and Pakistan is one of the most watched events on the global sporting calendar.
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