Pakistan to stage Asia Cup in 2006

Pakistan will host the next edition of the Asia Cup, scheduled to be held in 2006. On Sunday, the Pakistan Cricket Board was awarded the hosting rights for the tournament and Shaharyar Khan, the chairman of the PCB, said that the dates would also be finalised soon.

This will be the first time that the Asia Cup will be held in Pakistan, "Pakistan could not host the Asia Cup because of our problems in cricket relations with India," Shaharyar was quoted as saying in The News. "But now as we have started playing against each other and I don't think there should be a problem in hosting the tournament in 2006."

Ashraf-ul-Haq, the chief executive of the Asian Cricket Council, confirmed that Pakistan had given their formal agreement for hosting the tournament. "The 2004 event was originally scheduled to be staged in Pakistan," he added, "but had to be shifted to Sri Lanka last year. Now with the revival of Indo-Pak relations we deemed it fit to stage the event in Pakistan."

In the wake of the revival in cricket relations between India and Pakistan, the recently concluded Asia Cup was a hugely marketed event. The same newspaper estimated that the ACC had earned US$19million from the sale of rights to ESPN-Star.

There was, however, no decision taken on the next edition of the Asian Test Championships, held previously in 1999 and 2001. "We need at least 45 days to host the Asian Test Championship," Ashaf said, "and in the hectic international schedule a firm proposal will be discussed later."

The meeting also decided that the four Test playing countries will receive US$2.5million each from the tournament and Hong Kong and UAE will get US$300,000 each. The rest of the fund will be spent on the development of cricket in the associate-member countries.

Oman and UAE, the two finalists in the 2004 ACC Trophy, will also participate in the 2006 event. However, if the ACC Trophy is held before the Asia Cup in 2006, the qualifiers from that tournament will get a chance to play in the next Asia Cup.