COLOMBO: The Asia Cup Twenty20 tournament will be staged in the United Arab Emirates after the tournament was moved from Sri Lanka due to political turmoil in the island nation, the Asian Cricket Council said Wednesday.
Sri Lanka has witnessed months of food and fuel shortages, blackouts and runaway inflation in the wake of its worst financial crisis on record.
“Considering the prevailing situation in Sri Lanka, the ACC after extensive deliberation has unanimously concluded that it would be appropriate to relocate the tournament from Sri Lanka to UAE,” said an ACC statement.
Sri Lanka recently hosted Australia in a bilateral series and is currently playing Pakistan in the second Test at Galle.
“We were really looking forward to hosting our Asian neighbors in Sri Lanka for the much-anticipated Asia Cup,” SLC president Shammi Silva said.
“While I fully stand by the ACC’s decision to shift the Asia Cup to UAE considering the current context and magnitude of the event, Sri Lanka cricket will work closely with the ACC and the Emirates Cricket Board to ensure that we still have an exciting edition of the Asia Cup“
The six-team Asia Cup, last held in 2018 as a 50-over tournament, will be played in the T20 format between August 27 and September 11.
The UAE, Kuwait, Singapore and Hong Kong will play the qualifying round of matches.
The winner of the qualifiers will join heavyweights Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh in the main draw.
Asia Cup moved out of crisis-hit Sri Lanka to UAE
https://arab.news/ywjds
Asia Cup moved out of crisis-hit Sri Lanka to UAE
- Sri Lanka recently hosted Australia in a bilateral series and is currently playing Pakistan in the second Test at Galle
Postecoglou admits taking Nottingham Forest post a ‘bad decision’
- Postecoglou, 60, was appointed as Nuno Espirito Santo’s successor in September
- “There’s no point me blaming it on ‘I didn’t get time’ or anything,” said Postecoglou
LONDON: Ange Postecoglou has said he has only himself to blame for an extraordinarily brief reign as Nottingham Forest manager, with the Australian accepting he made “a bad decision” taking on the job with the Premier League strugglers.
Postecoglou, 60, was appointed as Nuno Espirito Santo’s successor in September.
But infamously impatient Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis sacked Postecoglou just 39 days later, after the experienced manager lost six of his eight games in charge.
Postecoglou, reflecting on his time at Forest for the Overlap podcast, said an over-eagerness to get back into management after his departure from Tottenham Hotspur three months earlier, had been the root cause of his troubles at the City Ground.
“There’s no point me blaming it on ‘I didn’t get time’ or anything,” said Postecoglou. “I should never have gone in there. That was on me. That was a bad decision by me to go in there. I’ve got to take ownership of that.
“It was too soon after Tottenham. I was taking over at a time where they were kind of used to doing things a certain way and I’m obviously going to do things differently. I’ve got to cop that, that was my mistake. It’s no-one else’s fault.”
Postecoglou remains without a club but he has ruled out returning to Celtic, where he enjoyed a successful two-year stint from 2021-23, with the 73-year-old Martin O’Neill currently in caretaker charge of the Scottish champions until the end of the season.
“I loved Celtic, it’s a wonderful football club,” said Postecoglou, who left the Glasgow giants to join Spurs. “If I was younger, I probably would have stayed there longer. I probably would have stayed there three, four years.
“I think I could have made progress with them in Europe but at the time, it had taken me a long time to get to this sort of space, and the opportunity to join Tottenham was too good.
“In terms of going back, I don’t go back. I just don’t think that’s kind of been my career.
“Whatever the next step is, it’ll be something new, somewhere I can make an impact in, somewhere I can win things, but it doesn’t diminish the affection I have for Celtic.”
