Women’s Asia Cup 2024: India to open title defence against Pakistan

The Indian women’s cricket team will open their Women’s Asia Cup title quest against arch-rivals Pakistan on July 19 after the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) announced the revised schedule of the Women’s Asia Cup 2024 on Tuesday.

The Women’s Asia Cup will take place in Dambulla, Sri Lanka, from July 19 to July 28.

The Asia Cup will have eight teams, one more than the previous edition. India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, UAE, Malaysia, Nepal and Thailand will play for top honours.

UAE, Malaysia, Nepal and Thailand have secured a place in the Asia Cup by virtue of being the semifinalists of the Women’s Premier Cup 2024.

UAE and Nepal will open the tournament on July 19 while India and Pakistan will play the second game on the opening day.

India will enter the Asia Cup as defending champions after beating Sri Lanka by eight wickets in the previous edition in Bangladesh in 2022. It was India’s seventh Asia Cup title.

The previous edition of the tournament was due to take place in 2020 but was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic to 2021 and finally it took place in 2022 after a series of postponements.

The eight teams have been divided into two groups. India, Pakistan, UAE and Nepal form Group A while Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Thailand and Malaysia are in Group B.

The tournament will also feature all female referees and umpires, following the successful implementation of the same in the previous edition. The Women’s Asia Cup will be followed by the Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 in Bangladesh from October 3 to October 20.

On days when there are two matches, the first match will start at 2 pm IST while the second match will commence at 7 pm IST. All matches will be played in Dambulla.