Asia Cup 2022: Why Pakistan team will wear black armbands in match against India

The Pakistan cricket team led by Babar Azam will be wearing black armbands in their opening match of the ACC T20 Asia Cup 2022 against India on Sunday evening.

This gesture is to to express solidarity with the flood victims in Pakistan in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Balochistan and Sindh, IANS reported

Heavy downpour has continued to pummel parts of that country which are already battered by calamitous floods, causing many deaths and severe destruction.


More than 1000 deaths have been reported in the local media, with 30 million people across that country affected. The unusual heavy monsoon rains and devastating flash floods are estimated to cost cash-strapped Pakistan over $ 4 billion in the current fiscal.

Scores of people have died in KP, where heavy rains have triggered devastating floods in rivers that washed away several houses. Fresh rains in Balochistan have cut off the province from the rest of the country.

Pakistan captain Babar Azam, in Dubai for the Asia Cup, appealed on Saturday evening to the world to help the flood-affected people of his country.

Pakistan is set to play India in their opening game on Sunday night in the first clash between the two cricketing giants after last year's T20I World Cup.

Pakistan won that match by 10 wickets, but India still have the lead in the Asia Cup, winning eight of the 14 the two teams played against each other at the tournament.

India: Rohit Sharma (captain), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Deepak Hooda, Dinesh Karthik, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravi Bishnoi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, Avesh Khan

Pakistan: Babar Azam (c), Shadab Khan, Asif Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, Iftikhar Ahmed, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Rizwan, Hasan Ali, Naseem Shah, Shahnawaz Dahani, Usman Qadir, Mohammad Hasnain.