Africa Cricket Association mulls to bring back Afro-Asia Cup

Africa Cricket Association (ACA) has said that the board is mulling to bring back the Afro-Asia Cup. For the unversed, the Afro-Asia Cup included white-ball games played between Asian XI and African XI teams. ACA held an Annual General Meeting on Saturday, November 2 where a six-member interim committee was appointed to foster the competitive opportunities for players from Africa and to restructure the ACA. 

It is worth noting that the Afro-Asia Cup was held twice before it was shelved in 2009. The event was held in 2005 in South Africa and in 2007 in India. The 2009 edition was scheduled to take place in Kenya but that did not happen. With ACA trying to reach out to the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) for the cricketing ties and collaboration, the tournament might get underway after almost two decades.

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"The Afro-Asia Cup, apart from the cricket, brings the much-needed financial input to the organisation, and the appetite is huge from both ends. We have had conversations with our counterparts within the Asia Cricket Council, and obviously our African contingents, they want the Afro-Asia Cup to be revived,” interim chair of the ACA, Tavengwa Mukuhlani said as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.

Afro-Asia Cup might bring Indo-Pak stars together 

The Afro-Asia Cup saw some big names from Asia playing under one roof. The 2005 edition saw the likes of Rahul Dravid, Ashish Nehra and Anil Kumble play as Inzamam ul Haq captained the side. The 2007 edition was even bigger with MS Dhoni, Sourav Ganguly, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar playing alongside Pakistan stars Mohammed Asif, Mohammed Yousuf and Shoaib Akhtar.

For Indo-Pak fans, this tournament will be a feast to savour if it happens. This might be one of the rarest occasions when the players from both India and Pakistan turn up for the same team. For the unversed, India and Pakistan have not played a white-ball bilateral series since 2012-13 and a Test match since 2007.