Baseball West Asia Cup is set to be staged in Pakistan with six nations competing for the title.
Pakistan Baseball Federation has confirmed to host the Baseball West Asia Cup in the country. The event will be hosted by Pakistan by the start of the next year. Six nations of West Asia will come face-to-face in order to claim the title. The countries competing in the event include Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Nepal, while Pakistan will be hosting the event.
According to the announcement made by Pakistan Baseball Federation, the tournament will be held from 26th January to 22nd February 2023.
The games of the Baseball West Asia Cup will be played at Syed Khawar Shah Baseball Ground in Sports Complex, Islamabad.
Except for Pakistan and Afghanistan, none of these countries are a part of West Asia. We let Sri Lanka win before just as we helped them with cricket but their families and preferred sports leagues are Indian. Not that we don’t have good ties with Sri Lanka and some of these other nations but they aren’t a competition to us. We can’t enjoy any sports if we have to continue to engage all these nations and then lose to them like we did in cricket so we could have them improve their ranking and be worthy of our competition. We had to lose to Bangladesh and India in 1999, then to India in 2007 for the IPL, in 2011 for Gilani’s meeting and in this cup for Kohli’s brand. No one anywhere in the entire world considers any of these nations “west Asian”. We should refuse to host them. We don’t have a single baseball diamond in the country, so where will they even play? We must invite actual West Asian teams or rather play against East Asian teams. We are ranked 5th in Asia, with world #1 Japan being the first. The other 4 are all East Asian teams. We should be playing against Taiwan, China, South Korea and Japan. Why are we being forced to become Kabbaders, Cricketers and field hockey players only to adjust in this artificial region called South Asia? Changing the name to West Asia doesn’t do much. Cancel the tournament or simply pull out and move the hosting somewhere else. We can’t belittle ourselves anymore.