Kolkata: The U-19 Asia Cup which was scheduled to be held in Bengaluru has now been shifted to Malaysia after the Pakistan Cricket Board had made it clear that it wouldn’t let the players travel to India for security reasons. The tournament would now be held in the month of November in Malaysia.
“The matter of shifting the tournament to Malaysia was amicably agreed by all participants in the development and executive committees, since no one wanted it marred by security considerations of any member,” said PCB chairman Najam Sethi on Saturday.
The political tension between the two countries had led the PCB to appeal to the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) to have the U-19 Asia Cup shifted out of India.
Interestingly, former PCB chairman Shaharyar Khan would be seen as the new chairman of the ACC as Najam Sethi is now the new chairperson of the country’s cricket board.
Also a thing to be noted is that the Western Region qualification round would be played in Kuwait, a region which is experiencing some severe political crisis.
Teams from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Bahrain would compete in the qualifiers from this region
India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have gained an automatic qualification to the tournament and two teams each from the Western and Southern regions would join them, making it an eight-team competition. India are the defending champions having won the 2016 edition of the tournament held in Sri Lanka.
Bilateral cricket between India and Pakistan haven’t been contested since 2007 with the only exception being the 2012-2013 series when Pakistan had toured India for three ODI’s and two T20s.