The continental cricketing event Asia Cup 2023 began Wednesday with an impressive start for Pakistan as they claimed a thumping victory against Nepal in the first match, played at Multan Cricket Stadium.
However, the tournament brought with it another controversy surrounding the official jerseys of the teams with no mention of the host country’s name on them.
All the participating teams revealed their jerseys for the Asia Cup ahead of the event, but an intriguing detail that the fans noticed was the absence of the host country Pakistan’s name under the Asia Cup logo.
This sparked a debate as fans expressed concerns about why Pakistan’s name hadn’t been written on the jerseys.
It may be noted that this year, Pakistan is jointly hosting the tournament with Sri Lanka due to the reservations voiced by India about visiting the rival country.
But the fans recalled that Sri Lanka’s name was written on the Asia Cup kits last year, despite the event taking place in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) due to the political and economic turmoil in the host country.
The sources affiliated with the authorities concerned have finally revealed the reason behind the exception.
They said that the Asian Cricket Council (ACC), which organises the Asia Cup every year, had decided against mentioning the host country’s name along with the year on the jersey, last year during the tournament’s 15th edition in the UAE.
The reason for that was ACC’s concerns regarding the variability of the jerseys as some of the Asia Cup 2022 had Sri Lanka and some had only the year written on them.
To bring uniformity in the jerseys and to ensure that the jerseys reach more people, the ACC decided to mention neither the name of the host country nor the year of the tournament, the sources said.
They said that this year’s Asia Cup jerseys only have the tournament’s logo on them.
