Asia Cup 2022: With less than 2 days to go for what promises to be one cracker of a tournament, the Asia Cup has now got its sixth team that will join India and Pakistan in Group A. The marquee event will start on August 27, 2022, and will see Sri Lanka and Afghanistan have a go at each other in the opener. On the other hand, India and Pakistan who are stationed in Group A are now joined by Hong Kong who remained unbeaten throughout the qualifiers and will now rub shoulders with the big boys of international cricket. The Asia Cup which was earlier scheduled to be held in Sri Lanka was later pushed to UAE due to logistical issues caused by the financial and economic crisis in the island nation.
On Thursday, August 24, 2022, Hong Kong took the field against UAE with one motive, to enter the group stage and compete against the very best in the world. Similar to what they did in their match against Kuwait, Hong Kong won the toss and invited UAE to bat first. Openers for UAE Muhammad Wasim and Chirag Suri wanted to lay a strong foundation for their team but they failed as Suri was dismissed by Ehsan Khan while he was batting on 4 runs. Muhammad Waseem too could not make any notable contribution as he was trapped LBW by Ayush Shukla who also dismissed UAE wicketkeeper-batsman Vriitya Aravind in the same fashion. With UAE reeling on 25-3, they needed something or somebody to pull them out and put them in a strong position and their skipper did the same thing. Chundangapoyil Rizwan scored a gritty 49 off 44 deliveries with 4 boundaries. Rizwan ensured that he holds one end together and keeps the scoreboard ticking. Following up with Rizwan's exploits, Zawar Farid scored a quickfire 41 off 27 deliveries which propelled UAE's scoring rate and they bundled out on 147 runs.
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Team Hong Kong had their eyes set on the target and the Asia Cup group stage qualifications. As Nizakhat Khan and Yasim Murtaza, the openers for Hog Kong walked in, they made sure to give their team a good start which will make the team's job easy to chase the target down. Khan with a strike rate of 100 scored 39 from the same amount of deliveries. However, Yasim Murtaza played a bit more aggressively and scored 58 off 43 deliveries. They stitched a partnership of 85 runs for the first wicket as UAE had already lost their cause. When Babar Hayat walked in, he wasted no further time and scored 38 off 26 deliveries as Hong Kong comfortably won the match by 8 wickets.
Team Hong Kong will now proceed to the main event and join India and Pakistan in Group A. They are scheduled to play their first match against India on Wednesday, August 31, 2022.
Teams
United Arab Emirates XI: Muhammad Waseem, Chirag Suri, Vriitya Aravind(w), Chundangapoyil Rizwan(c), Aryan Lakra, Basil Hameed, Zawar Farid, Sultan Ahmed, Karthik Meiyappan, Kashif Daud, Junaid Siddique
Hong Kong XI: Yasim Murtaza, Nizakat Khan(c), Babar Hayat, Kinchit Shah, Aizaz Khan, Scott McKechnie(w), Zeeshan Ali, Haroon Arshad, Ehsan Khan, Mohammad Ghazanfar, Ayush Shukla
