Asia Cup 2018: Super Four Stage schedule confirmed

With the horizons of the Asia Cup broadening slightly for this edition, the format of the tournament was tweaked a little bit. The initial phase of the tournament will come to an end on Thursday with the encounter between Bangladesh and Afghanistan and the Super four stage will follow.

The schedule for the Super Four stage was confirmed on Wednesday (19th September). Although there was a particular format which was allotted for this schedule, the Asian Cricket Council interestingly announced the schedule even before the positions of the teams in the group stages didn’t get confirmed.

It was decided earlier that the team topping Group A and team coming second in Group B will kick-start the Super Fours. But with another match remaining in Group B, Bangladesh were awarded the B2 position and Afghanistan with B1, which didn’t go down well with the Tigers’ skipper Mashrafe Mortaza

“It is very disappointing,” Mashrafe. “Basically what has happened is that we were made the second team in Group B even before we played the last game,” said Mortaza as quoted in Cricbuzz.

Super Fours to begin with a double-header

All of the four teams will be in action on 21st September, with India and Bangladesh clashing against each other in Dubai whilst Afghanistan and Pakistan to take on each other in Abu Dhabi. India will remain in Dubai for the rest of the tournament but the other teams will be traveling between Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

After a 1-day break, the arch-rivals India and Pakistan will be back again on the same field. On the same day in Abu Dhabi, Bangladesh and Afghanistan will lock-horns in what is promising to be a tight contest. The final two games of the Super Fours will be conducted on September 25th and 26th.

With Bangladesh and Afghanistan raising their standards big time, they will be keen to lift the trophy for the first time in their history. But for that to happen, they need to go past India and Pakistan, which seems slightly unlikely to happen.

Super 4 schedule:

September 21: India vs Bangladesh in Dubai; Pakistan vs Afghanistan in Abu Dhabi.

September 23: India vs Pakistan in Dubai; Afghanistan vs Bangladesh in Abu Dhabi.

September 25: India vs Afghanistan in Dubai.

September 26: Pakistan vs Bangladesh in Abu Dhabi.

September 28: Final in Dubai

(All matches start at 5 p.m. IST)