'Include South Africa and make it Afro-Asia Cup': Ashwin slams lack of competition at Asia Cup

'Include South Africa and make it Afro-Asia Cup': Ashwin slams lack of competition at Asia Cup (AP Photo)

Former India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has sparked a major discussion around the competitive balance at Asia Cup by acknowledging no teams in the continental showdown is a match for defending champions India. In a honest evaluation on his YouTube channel, Ashwin called the competition shallow and uncompetitive, and proposed structural adjustments to give the tournament a purpose.

“They can almost include a South Africa and make it an Afro-Asia Cup to make the tournament competitive,” Ashwin noted, before adding, “as it is now, they should probably include an India A side for it to be some contest.”

India headed into the continental showdown with 17 wins in last 20 T20Is since the World Cup triumph last year and launched the Asia Cup 2025 campaign with a crushing nine-wicket win against UAE.

“We’ve not even spoken about Bangladesh. Because there is nothing to talk about them,” Ashwin remarked and wondered, “how are these teams going to even compete against India?”

Pointing fingers was not the only thing the seasoned spinner did. He also hoped for an unexpected victor only to provide some element of surprise to the Asia Cup.

“In a way, I really hope someone else wins the tournament. Because only then will there be a contest in Asia. None of these teams pick Kuldeep or Varun. And we’ve not even spoken about India’s powerful batting line-up, which has match-winners galore,” Ashwin noted.

“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.”

Afghanistan was also mentioned by Ashwin as one of the few sides that could provide a bowling threat, but he doubted their capacity to pursue even modest targets against India. “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.”

Summarising the situation for India's opponents, Ashwin 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.”