Bring back Austral-Asia Cup!

[gazza619]

The Austral-Asia Cup was a One Day International cricket tournament held at Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The last edition was held in 1994. It featured India, Pakistan, SL, Australia and New Zealand. It was one heck of a mini tournament and was always exciting to watch. This was a really nice mix of teams. So you didn't have to see the South African choke or the England moan or West Indies groan. All you got to see was five quality teams fighting it out in the Austra-Asia Cup.

I don't know why it stopped. I am bored to death by watching teams playing 5 ODIs or 7 ODIs series. Bring back them good old days. And hey if India doesn't want to play it in, fine, we have our competitive Bangladeshi brothers to fill the void. Lets make some noises so the cricket boards can hear us. Bring back Austral-Asia Cup!

 

[Deewana Mastana]

I remember it.

It's a shame that it was called off but doubt with so much hectic schedules it will be considered in today's world.

 

[gazza619]

I remember it.

It's a shame that it was called off but doubt with so much hectic schedules it will be considered in today's world.

I know a lot of cricket goes on these days and the big three (India, Australia and England) are guilty of playing each other too much and eating out the cricket calender. But nowadays every top cricket nation can easily land 2 or 3 teams of quality players. So I don't see why boards can't send 2nd choice players if the first choice need rest. It will still be fun to watch.

 

[Suleiman]

Yeah! Asia Cup sucks. It's a glorified India vs Pakistan with side characters Bangla, SL and Malaysia, Hong Kong Azerbaijan type nobodies.

 

[cricketindiafan]

Not happening.

Sharjah got its glory in the days of Asian boards trying to earn some more money and help with their finances. IIRC, every tournament at Sharjah had list of beneficiary cricketers from India and Pakistan identified with 50-60000 dirhams for each player.

Then the TV broadcasting boom happened and Sharjah lost it's sheen as boards especially BCCI became richer and players started to earn very good money. With T20 leagues abounding, chances of any revival are even more remote.

 

[light]

i miss the asia v row tournaments. was more fun to watch

 

[Realromeo]

Basically it's Champions Trophy without England, SA and WI.

 

[Dulex9]

Pakistan won all three and the last one in 94 was an epic, Tendulkar, Sidhu got India off to a good start and Bedade threatened to put India back in the game but it wasn't meant to be.

 

[PakLFC]

I would welcome it for sure. Perhaps it can replace the Champions Trophy. It is gonna be difficult for the ICC to arrange top international teams to come together for another major tournament seeing the schedule they're committed to.

 

[umerz]

These type of tournaments were fun. I also liked a 5 national tournament in India which Pakistan won in 1989 I think

 

[CricVet]

Nehru cup was only played once. I dunno if it was for some special occasion or not. Pak was a very strong team then.

 

[Pete Rose]

It’s a different cricketing landscape now. There are enough t20 tournaments to occupy big playing windows. These tournaments and triangulars made sense in the past, when there were large gaps in the playing calendar

 

[Hasan2K8]

Meh.

Keeo Asia cup as it is. It is like the euros of football. It will hype up more in future as more competitions arises. Future icc should help Nepal bit more, if BCCI can open up their hearts a bit a help Nepal then we could have 6proper teams from Asia and not those expats making up the team like uae hong kong.

 

[Hasan123]

Don't think Australia will be interested in this. In terms of bilateral ODIs they only seem to be interested in playing India in a long series. For other bilaterals they will test new players.

 

[cricketindiafan]

Nehru cup was only played once. I dunno if it was for some special occasion or not. Pak was a very strong team then.

1989 was the birth centenary of our first PM Jawahar Lal Nehru. Nehru Cup was part of those celebrations.

1997-98 saw independence cups in India and SL on 50th year of independence and in BD for 25 years.

Next big one in India is 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi in 2019, but no sports events are part of the celebrations planned so far.

 

[Adijazz1706]

Better to have Asia vs RoW, would be fun to see who'd make it in from Bangladesh (Mushi only imo)

 

[Nikhil_cric]

Cricket has changed far too much for that to happen now. Btw I think this Australasia cup idea started in 86 and every 4 years until 2002 we had atleast one team from Asia and one team from ANZ.