The Asia Cup used to be an event right? OK, so it was never hugely relevant, but every now and again, when the continent’s top sides got together, it was something worth tuning into.
It happened irregularly and was always hostage to political tensions, but if for no other reason than that it occasionally provided a platform for an India-Pakistan game, its existence was worth it.
Coupled with the rise of the subcontinent in the 90s, it felt like the right thing to have: a showpiece event for the game’s dominant forces. So what if it was their fortune to be part of cricket’s only pre-eminent continent?
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A European Cricket Cup, for example, does not sound as enticing.
It is no longer any such thing.
Indeed the Asian Cricket Council is pretty much finished, swallowed up whole by the International Cricket Council (ICC), a few officials working out of Dubai as part of the ICC’s regional development arm for Asia.
That status may change again once the ICC reviews all the constitutional changes that were made in 2014 (of which this was one), but for now, it remains in this reduced form.
The tournament itself has lost whatever lustre it was once able to summon. When the main round begins on Wednesday, it will be the first time the main tournament will have been played in T20 format.
Given that it follows, in quick succession, the Bangladesh Premier League, the Big Bash and the Pakistan Super League and is then followed by, first, the World Twenty20 and then the biggest daddy of them all, the Indian Premier League, it is easy to dismiss this as just another product off the T20 conveyor belt. And a less glam, low-end one at that.
But that is the new raison d’etre of the tournament, that it is formless and is designed specifically to allow Asia’s teams a competitive prep ahead of a major ICC event. So this year it is a T20 event, ahead of the World Twenty20, as it will be in 2020 as well.
In 2018 and 2022 the event will switch back to its traditional 50-over format, ahead of the 50-over World Cups in those years. It is another point that this information means absolutely nothing. Of all cricket’s events, the Asia Cup is the one with which it pays least to look ahead beyond the current tournament.
In theory, reducing it to, essentially, a warm-up might actually end up giving it some renewed relevance. Now, for the teams, it is not just a random, inconsequential tournament stuffed into an already packed calendar.
It is now an opportunity, a last-gasp opportunity for fine-tuning a side before a major ICC event.
India, of all the sides, probably have the least amount of fine-tuning to do. They have won five of their last six Twenty20 internationals, including an impressive clean sweep in Australia.
“I would like to give everybody a game as it is important to have a settled team ahead of the World T20,” their captain MS Dhoni said, ahead of his side’s departure for Dhaka.
“The good thing is we played three games in Australia. Yes, the conditions were very different there and then we played Sri Lanka here. It is a good thing to convert the Asia Cup into a T20 format as it will give us more scope to settle down as a side.”
They have a few quibbles to resolve but long before March 15, when India open their World Twenty20 campaign, Dhoni knows what his best XI is. And it is a strong one, especially in home conditions.
Their status as favourites in Dhaka has also to do with the haplessness of their opponents. Pakistan and Sri Lanka, who would usually be expected to provide the main challenge, are unstable currently.
Pakistan were one of the best sides in the format in its early years, but they have slipped since. More recently that decline has hastened and they will arrive in Dhaka having lost five of their last six T20s and still not fully certain over the composition of their squad, let alone the playing XI.
Sri Lanka, on the other hand, have lost seven of their last nine format matches and have yet to shed the impression that they have not recovered from the retirements of men such as Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene.
It is on the batting that the toll has been greatest, but the return of Lasith Malinga and the attack that won them the last World Twenty20 is at least a consolation.
Instead, it may be time for the hosts Bangladesh to provide the main opposition.
That will happen if they can transmit their wonderful ODI resurgence last year to the shortest format. There they have lost five from nine, including three losses to Zimbabwe at home.
osamiuddin@thenational.ae
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