After four long years, the Asia Cup is all set to make a return this year as the 15th edition will be played from August 27 to September 11 this year in Sri Lanka. However, Sri Lanka is going through major economic crisis and there are many important cricket tournaments lined up in coming days. Despite all the adversity, Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) Board's secretary Mohan De Silva is confident of hosting the highly anticipated Asia Cup in the Island nation.
In an exclusive conversation with Sports Tak, De Silva said ,"there is absolutely nothing wrong in Sri Lanka, there are groups protesting against the regime and we are having a crisis due to bad management. Apart from that there is no civil unrest or political unrest I'm very confident that it will be sorted out in the next couple of weeks."
Do you feel any threat to Asia cup?
"I don’t think.. Demonstration going on, before the Asia cup Australians are coming here in June July, so they shown interest and we had discussions with them during the icc meeting , they are very confident in visiting Sri Lanka. similarly, I don’t think there will be any issue in hosting the Asia cup. Actually, I can’t sort off commit and say that Asia cup is on that of course Asian cricket council has to take call on it but at the same time we are very confident and we know that things will sort out and will be normal very soon and we will be able to host all these important events," De Silva said.
Clarity on Bangladesh tour
Talking about Sri Lanka tour to Bangladesh he said, "Sri Lanka's Bangladesh tour is also on, there is absolutely nothing wrong in Sri Lanka. There is no impact of crisis on cricket he ended".
Sri Lanka political imbroglio & economic crisis
Sri Lanka is marred by its worst financial crisis in more than 70 years. In face of this adversity, people in Island nation are experiencing severe shortages of food, fuel and other essentials. The 22 million people of the island nation have witnessed weeks of power blackouts and severe shortages of food in the wake of the economic and political tension.
Earlier, former champions Sri Lanka were declared the hosts of the Asia Cup T20 tournament. All of Asia's Test teams - India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and hosts Sri Lanka are set to play the 2022 edition of the white-ball tournament that will be played in T20 format this year.
India won the last edition of the Asia Cup under Rohit Sharma's captaincy in 2018 after defeating Bangladesh in the final.
It has been four years since the last Asia Cup, as the competition keeps on getting delayed for one reason or another. It was originally scheduled to be held in September 2020, but was postponed June 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The tournament was then postponed once again to August 2022, with the host nation being changed from Pakistan to Sri Lanka.
