New Delhi: Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) is confident of hosting the Asia Cup 2022 later this year in August despite the political unrest in the island nation. The tournament is slated to be played from August 27 to September 11. The final decision on whether to retain 'crisis-hit' Sri Lanka as the host for the six-nation Asia Cup 2022 will be taken by the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) on Friday. After successfully hosting Australia, Sri Lanka Cricket Secretary Mohan de Silva said that cricket is completely unaffected by the situation going on in the country.

 

The Australian cricket team arrived in Sri Lanka in June and returned home after playing a full all-format bilateral series for 35 days.

 

“As far as we are concerned, we are still very confident of hosting the tournament in Sri Lanka,” said  Mohan de Silva, secretary at Sri Lanka Cricket while speaking to  ESPNcricinfo.


“We have just hosted the Australian tour with two Tests in Galle, and Pakistan are in the country as well,” he added.

 

De Silva remains optimistic about Sri Lanka hosting the Asia Cup as after Australia, Pakistan's cricket team recently arrived in Sri Lanka to play a two-match Test series. The visitors have already played warm-up matches and PCB has confirmed that the team has not been affected by the political conflict in the hosting nation.

 

Asia Cup 2022 will be played from 27 August to 11 September. Prior to this, qualifiers will be played from August 20 to August 26, in which countries like Hong Kong, Kuwait, Singapore, and UAE will participate. Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka have already qualified for the mega T20 tournament.