R Ashwin will be part of the Indian team at the 2025 edition of the Hong Kong Sixes.
Ashwin to play in the Hong Kong Sixes
On September 18, Cricket Hong Kong announced on social media that Ashwin would be part of the 2025 edition of the Hong Kong Sixes, to be played between November 7 and 9.
Indian cricketers do not get the NOC to play in overseas leagues of matches 20 overs or fewer until they retire from Indian cricket. Ashwin had retired from international cricket after the Brisbane Test match of 2024/25, and from the IPL on August 27, thereby making himself eligible for overseas leagues. “My time as an explorer of the game around various leagues begins today,” he had announced back then.
There had been speculations around Ashwin enrolling himself for the SA20 2026 auctions, but he did not sign up because he had been part of the ILT20 auction pool. The two tournaments are usually played simultaneously.
Read: Hong Kong Cricket Sixes – history and rules
What are the Hong Kong Sixes?
Hong Kong became an ICC Associate Member and played in the ICC Trophy in the 1980s, but their players lacked a stage where they could compete against the best in the world. The local fans, many of them expatriates from cricket-playing nations, also wanted to see the big stars.
To counter this, Hong Kong launched the Cricket Sixes in the 1990s where they invited “international” sides. Exhibition cricket matches were common back then, but virtually no tournament managed to host an annual “international” cricket competition.
Unlike Kerry Packer’s World Series in the 1970s or the Rebel tours of South Africa in the 1980s, the boards did not object to the cricketers playing in the Sixes. What began as a small tournament, thus, expanded into a galaxy of stars representing “national” sides playing as per customised rules.
Hong Kong Sixes were held every year between 1993 and 1997, then again from 2001 to 2012 before franchise-based T20 leagues halted its progress. Since then, it has been played only in 2017 before it a relaunch in 2024.
