“Include South Africa and India A sides” - Ravi Ashwin feels there is a lack of competition in ongoing Asia Cup 2025 campaign

Former Indian spinner and analyst Ravi Ashwin has opened up on the lack of competition in the ongoing Asia Cup 2025 campaign, adding that the standard of the showpiece event was so bad that it couldn’t be a curtain raiser for the forthcoming ICC T20 World Cup 2026.

Speaking on his YouTube channel, Ashwin also asserted that the tournament should have India’s junior sides or teams from Africa, rebranding the tournament name to the Afro-Asia cup to spice things up.

“They can almost include South Africa and make it an Afro-Asia Cup to make the tournament competitive. As it is now, they should probably include an India A side for it to be some contest. We’ve not even spoken about Bangladesh. Because there is nothing to talk about with them. How are these teams going to even compete against India?” Ravi Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.

“This is not some curtain raiser for the 2026 T20 World Cup, it’s only a curtain. This tournament isn’t some major yardstick for it. Even against the so-called threat of the Afghanistan bowlers, if India bat well and score 170+, who will Afghanistan chase this down with? It’s nearly impossible,” he added.

“The only way to defeat India is by somehow restricting them to 155 on a good day, and then chase it down. Normally a T20 is thrilling but India will likely make even that one-sided in this Asia Cup,” he concluded.

India is scheduled to take on the UAE in the first match of the Asia Cup 2025 campaign on September 10, while they will take on their arch-rivals, Pakistan, on Sunday, September 14. Their last group stage game is against Oman on Friday, September 19.

India’s squad for Asia Cup: Surya Kumar Yadav (C), Shubman Gill (VC), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma (WK), Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav, Sanju Samson (WK), Harshit Rana, Rinku Singh.

Standby players: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Prasidh Krishna, Washington Sundar, Riyan Parag and Dhruv Jurel.

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