Credit: Twitter
The Asia Cup 2023 will be played between six teams Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, and Nepal from 30th August till 17th September on Sri Lanka (4 games) and Pakistan (9 games) soil. Among the teams that are set to play this Asia Cup edition, only Nepal qualified by playing the qualifiers while the other five teams are selected by default to play this tournament.
India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh have played 14 out of 15 Asia Cup editions, while Sri Lanka remain the only team to play all 15 editions of Asia Cup from 1984-2022. Afghanistan have been part of the Asia Cup since the 2014 edition and they went on to play all the editions post that.
UAE were part of the Asia Cup in 2004, 2008 & 2016 respectively. Here, in this article, we will see why the UAE failed to qualify for the Asia Cup in this edition.
From 18th April to 1st May, ACC Men's Premier Cup 2023 was ten-team event, in which Nepal, Oman, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, Hong Kong, Bahrain, and Singapore participated, and notably the winning team qualified directly for the Asia Cup 2023.
UAE in ACC Men's Premier Cup 2023:
- Defeated Kuwait by 143 runs (Group Stage)
- Defeated Hong Kong by 67 runs (DLS) (Group Stage)
- Defeated Singapore by 201 runs (Group Stage)
- Defeated Bahrain by 8 wickets (Group Stage)
- Defeated Oman by 2 runs (DLS) (Semi-Finals)
- Lost to Nepal by 7 wickets (Final)
UAE despite winning all the games and topping the table in the group stage, their unfortunate loss against Nepal in the ACC Men's Premier Cup final ended their chances to qualify for Asia Cup 2023.
ACC Men's Premier Cup points table 2023:
Group A:
1. Nepal - 7 points (4 games)
2. Oman - 6 points (4 games)
3. Malaysia - 4 points (4 games)
4. Saudi Arabia - 3 points (4 games)
5. Qatar - 0 points (4 games)
Group B:
1. UAE - 6 points (4 games) (NRR: 2.468)
2. Kuwait - 6 points (4 games) (NRR: 0.223)
3. Hong Kong - 5 points (4 games)
4. Bahrain - 3 points (4 games)
5. Singapore - 0 points (4 games)
