The 2023 ACC Men's Challenger Cup was the inaugural edition of the ACC Men's Challenger Cup, hosted by the Cricket Association of Thailand from 24 February to 5 March 2023. Eight associate teams competed in 15 matches across two venues in Thailand. Saudi Arabia defeated Bahrain in the final to become the inaugural champions. Both teams advanced to the 2023 ACC Men's Premier Cup.
Background The ACC Men's Challenger Cup is a biennial international cricket competition organised by the Asian Cricket Council (ACC), which alternates between 50-overs and 20-overs cricket. In January 2023, the tournament was announced as a part of the associate teams' qualification pathway for the Asia Cup and the ACC Emerging Teams Asia Cup.
Format The eight participating teams were divided into two groups of four teams each. In the group stage, each team played each of the other teams in the group once in a round-robin format for 12 matches, and the top two teams in each group advanced to the knockout stage. The knockout stage consisted of two semi-finals and a final. In the 2023 tournament, all the matches were played in 50-over format as limited overs cricket matches without international status.
Teams The top eight associate teams based on the ICC T20I rankings directly qualified for the Premier Cup, while the next ranked eight teams: Bahrain, Bhutan, Indonesia, Iran, Maldives, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, and Thailand played in the Challenger Cup.
Venues
The tournament was played across two venues in Bangkok, Thailand; seven matches at Asian Institute of Technology Ground (including semi-final 1); and eight matches at Terdthai Cricket Ground (including semi-final 2 and final). Select the specific edition of the event in the first dropdown menu.
Group stage In the group stage, two groups of four teams played in a round-robin format for a total of 12 matches from 24 February to 1 March 2023 across the two venues. The top two teams from each group: Bahrain and Bhutan from group A and Saudi Arabia and Thailand from group B advanced to the knockout stage.
Group A Group B
Group A
Group B
Knockout stage The knockout stage consisted of two semi-finals played on 3 March, and a final played on 5 March. The top two teams (winners of the semi-finals / finalists): Saudi Arabia and Bahrain qualified for the 2023 ACC Men's Premier Cup.
Bracket
Sources:
Semi-finals
Final
See also
References