The Asia Cup being played in Sri Lanka and Pakistan is turning out to be the most controversial ACC tournament ever. On Wednesday, the match in Lahore had to be stopped for about half an hour only because the floodlights of Gaddafi Stadium did not turn on.
Floodlights are the result of negligence, but there are also controversies like Sri Lanka getting to host 9 matches during the rainy season, traveling to the host country 3 times for 4 matches, empty stadiums, expensive tickets, confusion over hosting and poor scheduling. Have been associated with this tournament.
In the year 2021 itself, it was decided that Pakistan would host the 2023 Asia Cup. Everything was decided, but before the schedule was released, BCCI Secretary Jai Shah said that Team India will not go to Pakistan. This is where the first controversy started. After months of discussions between the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and the Asian Cricket Council (ACC), it was decided on June 15 that the tournament would be held in Sri Lanka along with Pakistan.
ACC and PCB met and decided that 4 matches will be played in host Pakistan and 9 matches will be played in Sri Lanka. Team India will play all its matches in Sri Lanka and the final will also be held in Sri Lanka.
The PCB and ACC decided in June that the Asia Cup would be held in Sri Lanka with Pakistan. Najam Sethi, who was the chairman of PCB at that time, said that he had demanded to hold the tournament in UAE, but his demand was postponed saying that it would be very hot there. Whereas the previous Asia Cup in 2022 was played in UAE around the same time from 27 August to 11 September.
Last year, there was no problem of rain or floodlights in any match, but ACC decided not to hold the Asia Cup in UAE for the third consecutive time. Before 2022, the 2018 Asia Cup was also held in the UAE.
The 6-team Asia Cup is being played in hybrid model for the first time. This tournament, which started in 1984, was played 15 times before, but matches were never held simultaneously in two countries. This time matches are being held in two countries, due to which the traveling of the teams has increased. Even the host country Pakistan had to make 3 trips to 2 countries for 4 matches.
On August 30, Pakistan played the opening match of the tournament against Nepal in Multan.
On 31 August, the team again left for Colombo, Sri Lanka, because on 2 September they had to play a match against India in Kandy.
On 3 September, the Pakistan team left from Kandy for Colombo and from Colombo for Lahore. The team played a match against Bangladesh here on 6th September.
The team will leave for Colombo from Lahore on 7th September, as the team will play its second match in the Super-4 stage against India on 10th September.
Pakistan had to travel the most in the entire Asia Cup. Apart from them, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh traveled to 2 countries for 3 matches.
During this period, the matches between India and Afghanistan were held at one venue each.
The opening match of the Asia Cup between Nepal and Pakistan was played in Multan on August 30, but very few spectators turned up to watch the match in this stadium with a capacity of 35,000 spectators. Even more than half of the stadium was seen empty in the entire match. The Afghanistan-Bangladesh and Afghanistan-Sri Lanka matches in Lahore also attracted very few spectators.
So far 2 matches have been affected due to rain, both the matches were of India. Due to rain, less tickets were sold for these matches. Apart from these, very few spectators reached the matches held in Lahore also. Now according to reports, PCB has sought compensation from ACC for the unsold tickets.
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