India and Pakistan will not be playing a match in the early rounds of the cricket competition at the upcoming Asian Games, thus ensuring that their long-awaited clash may only happen when medals are on the line.
The top two seeds in the men’s tournament are the two sides, which have been drawn on opposing sides of the knockout bracket. This means that India and Pakistan cannot play against each other in the quarter final or semi-final of the tournament.
If both teams make it to the finals, they would only cross paths in either the gold-medal game or the bronze-medal playoff. This is the same format adopted for the women’s competition.
India and Pakistan were drawn into two separate quarter-finals.India and Pakistan were sent to the two separate quarter-finals.
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka will get automatic qualifiers into the quarter-finals of the men’s tournament, which will have 10 teams.
The other six teams, which includes Afghanistan, will be competing in the group stage first, with the winners moving on to the knockout stage.
India will face in the Quarterfinal 2 while Pakistan will play in the Quarterfinal 1. The two quarter-finals take place on 28 September; the opponents will be decided on the basis of the group stage results.
Hence, the two arch-rivals will have to make their way through the knockout stages before a clash between the two could be realised again.
Cricket schedule at Asian Games
The Asian Games will be held from September 19 to October 4; the cricket will begin earlier.
Women’s cricket will lead the way with the women’s final kicking off on September 22, following the beginning on September 17. The men’s events will be next with the cricket games running until October 3.
The women’s tournament will feature eight teams and the men’s will have 10 teams.
The draw does leave the door open to a bigger India-Pakistan clash, but in contrast to many such games in the past, there’s no likelihood that the rivals will meet in any of the preliminary games.
Should they both plunge into the contest — and the potential clash becomes more meaningful — the next time they meet, it may be a medal at stake.