Next month in September between 15 to 28, Asia Cup 2018 is going to commence in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Six teams will be participating in the tournament with 13 matches to be played over a period of 14 days. However, the only two big cities, Dubai and Abu Dhabi will be hosting the matches. On one hand, 5 teams (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan) finalized are confirmed, the sixth is yet to be finalized.
Hong Kong, Nepal, Oman, Malaysia, Singapore and hosts UAE will play a qualifying league and only one of the will get a chance to feature in the Asia Cup 2018. The Indian team is also listed to play two back-to-back games against the qualifying team and Pakistan on September 18 and 19 respectively. The format has also been designed in a way which means that arch-rivals India and Pakistan will lock horns with each other a minimum of two times provided something miraculous doesn’t happen.
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Star India are the official broadcasters of the tournament and they recently announced nine of their channels which will telecast the contests. Star Sports 1, Star Sports 1 HD, Star Sports 1 Hindi, Star Sports 1 Hindi HD, Star Sports Select, Star Sports Select HD, Star Sports 2, Star Sports 2 HD and Star Sports Tamil are the channels as per reports in Inside Sport.
Hotstar, the Star Sports-owned Over the top (OTT) platform will stream all the matches online. The previous edition of the Asia Cup took place in 2016 in Bangladesh. India will be defending their title which they earned after defeating the home team in a closely-fought final at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur. The event was played in a T20 format bearing in mind the World T20 in India that followed.
The 50-over World Cup will be played next year in England and Wales and the Asia Cup is expected to be important as far as preparation for the World Championship is concerned. India and Pakistan will also lock horns in the ten-team world tournament at Old Trafford in Manchester on Sunday, July 16.
