6 April 2024 09:10 am
By: Shamseer Jaleel
Host Sri Lanka, Qatar, Kazakhstan and India will participate in this four-nation tournament.
Originally, this year’s AR Men’s Division 1 Tournament was to be contested between Sri Lanka, Qatar and Pakistan. However, Pakistan withdrew from this year’s competition.
At the same time, the AR Men’s Division 2 competition also ended up with only two teams - Kazakhstan and India - available to compete as Iran withdrew from this year’s competition.
The AR Division 1 will now take place in a knock-out format with Qatar taking on Kazakhstan in the first semi-final and Sri Lanka will face India in the second semi-final under lights.
On May 5, the losing semi-finalists will play for third place while the winners will play for the final and promotion for the AR Top-4 in 2025.
Sri Lanka last competed in the AR Men’s Division 1 Championship five years ago in 2019 in Chinese Taipei.
Sri Lanka lost in the semi-final to the Philippines 39-22 but came back strongly to take third place by beating the hosts, Chinese Taipei 72-17.
Since then, Sri Lanka have not been able to compete, due to the cancellation of all rugby activity due to the pandemic and then due to Sri Lanka Rugby (SLR) suspension by AR and World Rugby over governance issues.
The schedule: