The 2021 ICC Men's T20 World Cup Asia Qualifier was a tournament that was played as part of qualification process for the 2022 ICC Men's T20 World Cup in October 2021.[1][2] In April 2018, the International Cricket Council (ICC) granted full international status to Twenty20 men's matches played between member sides from 1 January 2019 onwards. Therefore, all the matches in the Regional Qualifiers were played as Twenty20 Internationals (T20Is).[3] The Asia Qualifier consisted of two sub-regional groups, A and B, with the groups being played in Qatar and Malaysia respectively. The winners of each sub-regional group progressed to one of two global qualifiers.[4] On 2 September 2021, the ICC announced that Group A had been moved from Kuwait to Qatar.[5][6][7][8]
Originally, the qualifiers were scheduled to be played between March and September 2020.[9] However, on 24 March 2020, the International Cricket Council (ICC) confirmed that all ICC qualifying events scheduled to take place before 30 June 2020 had been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[10] In December 2020, the ICC updated the qualification pathway following the disruption from the pandemic.[11] In March 2021, the Group A qualifier was postponed again, and was moved back to October 2021.[12] In May 2021, the Group B qualifier was postponed to November 2021 due to the pandemic.[13][14] However, in October 2021, the ICC cancelled the Group B tournament due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with Hong Kong progressing to the next stage as the highest-ranked team.[15] Bahrain won Group A to progress to the Global Qualifiers, finishing just ahead of Qatar on net run rate.[16]