Asia Cup

The Asia Cup is the Asian Cricket Council’s flagship international tournament, contested by the leading sides in the region. It is not an annual event and it does not have a fixed format: since 2016 it has alternated between one-day internationals and Twenty20, and the choice is tied to whichever World Cup comes next, so the tournament doubles as preparation for it.

The structure has settled into two stages. Teams are drawn into groups and play a round robin inside their group, with the top two from each group advancing. Those four then form the Super Four, a second round robin where every side plays the other three once. The two teams at the top of the Super Four table meet in the final.

That means a side has two tables to get through rather than one. Points from the group stage do not carry into the Super Four, so all four qualifiers start again from zero. Within each stage the scoring follows the usual international convention: two for a win, one apiece for a tie or a no result, nothing for a defeat, with net run rate separating teams level at the top.

The field has grown. The five full members of the Asian Cricket Council take their places automatically, and the remaining spots are earned through the ACC Premier Cup, which is how the associate sides come in.