Asia Cup 2018: Hong Kong matches to be temporarily classified as ODIs

Hong Kong lost their claim for an ODI status to Nepal due to their poor performance in the Qualifier for the World Cup, 2018 played in March this year. The Asian team finished at 10th position among the ten teams despite defeating Afghanistan, who ended up winning the tournament. However, Hong Kong pulled their socks up in the Qualifying matches for the Asia Cup 2018.

They came back strong to win the tournament after losing their first game against the hosts Malaysia. The Anshuman Rath-led side defeated UAE in a rain-affected final by two wickets to seal a berth in the Asia Cup main draw. Hong Kong will feature alongside India and Pakistan in the Group A of the prestigious tournament.

There were so many doubts about the classification of the games that Hong Kong feature in since they don’t have the ODI status. The matches that West Indies and Zimbabwe played against the teams without ODI status were considered “List A” games during the CWC Qualifiers and the same was expected to be the case when India and Pakistan faced Hong Kong.

ICC ends all doubts

The Asian Cricket Council (ACC) clarified that Hong Kong’s matches have been granted temporary ODI status by the International Cricket Council (ICC) for all matches that will involve them in the Asia Cup.

Hong Kong team has featured in two editions of the tournament before with temporary ODI status allowing them to feature in a few ODI matches. They were a part of the Asian championship in 2004 and 2008 editions and played four matches losing all of them.

Never in the last 20 years:

The last instance when both India and Pakistan teams took on the countries in “List A” matches that didn’t have ODI status was during the 1998 Commonwealth Games. In addition to the three games in that tournament, the Pakistan national team also featured in three List A games without ODI status when they took on Sri Lanka in the 1970s that was an Associate side at that time and didn’t have the ODI rank.

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