Asia Cup 2025: Why associate nations have struggled to shake off minnows tag despite glimpses in T20 World Cup
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Asia Cup 2025: Why associate nations have struggled to shake off minnows tag despite glimpses in T20 World Cup")
Asia Cup 2025: Why associate nations have struggled to shake off minnows tag despite glimpses in T20 World Cup Photograph: (AFP)
Albeit the qualification in Asia’s premier tournament is a chest-thumping moment for Oman cricket, the performance in the tournament has been rather lacklustre.
Not far from the fringes of missile strikes, air raid sirens and plumes of smoke billowing in the skies of Yemen, Oman’s cloud nine moment came when they qualified for the Asia Cup 2025 for the very first time. Albeit the qualification in Asia’s premier tournament is a chest-thumping moment for Oman cricket, the performance in the tournament has been rather lacklustre. The same can be said about their East Asian counterparts, Hong Kong, who are now taking part in their fifth Asia Cup. Adding to this are the hosts UAE, whose woes continue at multilateral events.
What has gone wrong for associate nations?
The string of below-par performances comes just 14 months after a stellar T20 World Cup in the West Indies and USA that saw teams that are generally considered as minnows upstage some of the biggest giants in the game, the most notable being USA piping Pakistan in a nail-biting ‘super over’ thriller.
Alongside Pakistan, that tournament also saw New Zealand and Sri Lanka crashing out in the round-robin stage, paving the way for Afghanistan and the USA to storm through into the Super 8s, with the former securing a maiden semi-final berth. The event truly bequeathed a belief that cricket is finally forging its path in becoming a global spectacle like football.
Whilst many pinned their hopes on associate nations to replicate the ruckus and upend some results from last year, expectations fell flat as all three minnows were getting skittled and outfoxed to double-digit scores. Teams like Hong Kong were literally having butter fingers as they dropped the simplest of all catches, which might have irked the bowlers and the management.
The shoddy display by these teams tells that these sides lack experience, which only comes by playing more cricket with the bigger Test-playing nations like India or Australia, at least in the shortest format.
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Take Hong Kong, for example, the dearth of experience was clearly evident when their bowlers could not defend their total against Bangladesh, a team that has gained notoriety for having the poorest run rate in T20Is alongside Sri Lanka.
Other factors
Apart from this, another cause of concern is that none of these players from the UAE, Oman and Hong Kong take part in any of the franchise tournaments held across the world. Adding to that, players in these lesser-known teams are not full-time cricketers, with some working as delivery partners or in white collar jobs.
Furthermore, there is no proper domestic cricket structure or a franchise tournament, barring the UAE, which hosts the ILT20.
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For teams like the UAE, Oman, Hong Kong and others, achieving parity or reducing the gap with bigger Test-playing nations can only be done through consistency. This can only be achieved if these teams take part in trilateral or quadrilateral tournaments with the bigger teams. That, of course, depends on whether or how much the bigger nations are willing to accommodate or adjust their Future Tour Programmes (FTPs).
With just months away from the 2026 T20 World Cup, associate nations will have to pull out all stops if they intend to go higher up in the pecking order of international cricket.
Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer
