Asia Cup 2016

The 2016 Asia Cup was the first ever Twenty20 International format of this cricket tournament which was hosted by Bangladesh. The Cup was held between February 24 to March 6, 2016.

India won the title that year after they defeated Bangladesh in the finals by eight wickets to lift their sixth Asia Cup title.

Participating teams

Five teams participated in the tournament which included the hosts Bangladesh, defending champions Sri Lanka along with with India, Pakistan and United Arab Emirates.

UAE got qualified for the main event after they won the qualifying round which was played from February 19 to 22, 2016. Afghanistan, Hong Kong and Oman were the other three teams that played in the qualifying round.

Format

After the International Cricket Council diminished the Asian Cricket Council, it was decided that the Asia Cup will be held in a rotational basis between One Day Internationals and Twenty20 Internationals.

The 2016 Cup was held in a T20I format while in 2018 it will take place in the form of 50-over matches. Similarly, next edition will be again T20Is.

Venue

A total of 11 matches took place in the tournament and all of them were played at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Mirpur, Dhaka.

Results:

Group Stage

India topped the points table after the group stage as they won four out of four matches that they played. This made them easily qualify for the final match.

Bangladesh was the team that followed the team India at the second spot. They just lost a single game in the group stage to qualify for the finals to clash with india.

The other two Asian giants, Pakistan and Sri Lanka failed miserably at the competition as they just managed two and one win each to finish third and fourth respectively after the group stage. This way they both faced an early exit from the competition.

UAE did not manage to win even a single match as they ended up losing four out of four of their matches.

Points Table

Finals

After India and Bangladesh locked horns in the finals, it was always India's game and they really did so with complete ease. They defeated the hosts by eight wickets to remain unbeaten throughout the tournament.

The final match was cut down to 15-overs per side in a rain affected match. After winning the toss, India elected to field and the decision paid well as they restricted the opposition for 120 runs.

Chasing 121, India crossed the finishing line inside 14 overs with eight wickets in hand. Shikhar Dhawan (60) was the major contributor in that victory and was rightly awarded with the ‘Man of the Match’ award.

After winning this title, India also became the most successful team in this competition with six titles, going past Sri Lanka which has five titles. India also became the first country to win the first Twenty20 International version of the Asia Cup.

This was also the second title for MS Dhoni as the captain of the Indian side. By doing so, he became the second captain after Mohammad Azharuddin in the history of the game to achieve this feat.

Statistics

1. Sabbir Rahman (Bangladesh) ended up as the highest run getter with 176 runs in five matches.
2. Dinesh Chandimal (Sri Lanka) got the most number of fifties (two) in four matches.
3. Al- Amin Hossain (Bangladesh) was the leading wicket taker with 11 wickets in five matches.