Asia Cup Qualifiers 2022: Check who might play against India, Pakistan in group A

New Delhi: It is the Asia Cup Qualifier 2022, where four teams are battling it out for the last spot. Hong Kong, UAE and Kuwait are still in the race to play India and Pakistan in group A, while Singapore is out of contention. With two wins in two games, Hong Kong is leading the tournament.

It is going to be a thrilling finish to the qualifiers as the winner will be decided on the last day and even the net run rate has come into play. Hong Kong and UAE, the top two teams, will face each other on August 24, while Singapore will play to cause an upset against Kuwait.

Take a look at what every team requires to book their seat in the main event:

Hong Kong

The team won against Singapore just by a margin of 8 runs as Ehsan Khan took three wickets after Arshad Mohammad’s power-packed 27* off 14 balls for Hong Kong. This was followed by a brilliant chase against Kuwait which featured the fifties from Babar Hayat and Nizarat Khan while Yasim Murtaza hit 46(33). After chasing 151 with 14 balls left, Hong Kong leads the table and is most likely ready to face India and Pakistan.

All they need is to beat UAE to confirm their qualification, otherwise, they will have to depend on the NRR. Though Hong Kong has never won against UAE in an official T20I, this team looks ready for it.

UAE

UAE lost their first game against Kuwait in a thrilling finish as the team won with one wicket with just one ball left. However, the UAE’s batting was impressive as Chirag Suri scored 88 off 61 while Mohammed Waseem and Vriitya Arvind contributed 35 and 33 respectively. In the second game, UAE improved on the bowling department as well after they gave Singapore a target of 161. Palaniapan Meiyappan and Junaid Siddiqui ended up with figures of 4-0-13-3 and 3-0-14-3 respectively to get Singapore all out on 113.

UAE has 2 points in two games, but a better run rate than Hong Kong. UAE needs to win against Hong HKong to qualify, but the margin of win depends on Kuwait’s margin of victory against Singapore.

Kuwait

Kuwait beat UAE in a nail-biting encounter where tail-enders Yasin Patel and Mohammed Shafeeq finished the chase for the team. The team then went on to lose against Hong Kong as bowlers leaked too many runs Edson Silva’s 56 off 30.

The team requires one big win against Singapore to qualify for the main event, while they need UAE to defeat Hong Kong by a small margin. A win of at least 78 runs or a successful chase in around 11 overs would put their net run rate higher than UAE’s 1.045, while they will still need UAE to win with a small margin.

Singapore

Singapore has lost both of their games and is out of the race for qualification. But the team saw some good individual performances to cheer for, like Akshay Puri’s 17/2 and Aritra Dutta’s 29 off 16 against Hong Kong while Janak Prakash’s 35/3 and Dutta’s 42 off 29 against UAE. After three years and 10 games, Aritra played well in his last two games scoring his highest T20I score in his 12th match. He looks like an answer to Singapore’s problems in the absence of Tim David, who got a call-up from Cricket Australia.

Standings: