Star cricketers from rival countries India and Pakistan might join forces to take the best from African nations as the talks regarding the revival of Afro-Asia Cup is going on again.

For the unversed, the Afro-Asia Cup was a cricket series played between players from Asian cricketing nations such as India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh and African nation players like South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Kenya.

It was played two times in 2005 and 2007 with the former edition ending up tied at 1-1 due to rain interrupting the third and final ODI, while the latter edition had one T20 match and three ODIs. Asia XI whitewashed African XI in the ODIs and also won the T20 match in 2007.

However, the competition was abandoned due to hostile diplomatic ties between India and Pakistan along with the broadcasting issues.

According to a latest report published in ESPNCricinfo, the Africa Cricket Association (ACA) carried out its Annual General Meeting (AGM) last Saturday (November 2) where a six-person interim committee was appointed to help improve the number of competitive opportunities in the continent.

Another one of their goals includes approaching the Asia Cricket Council (ACC) to explore competitive opportunities between the two continents.

“The Afro-Asia Cup, apart from the cricket, brings the much-needed financial input to the organisation, and the appetite is huge from both ends," Tavengwa Mukuhlani, interim chair of the ACA, who is also the Zimbabwe Cricket Chair, said at a press conference.

“We have had conversations with our counterparts within the Asia Cricket Council (ACC), and obviously our African contingents, they want the Afro-Asia Cup to be revived," he added.

The report also claimed that no official request has been made to the ACC, nor has any discussion taken place at their recent meeting in Malaysia.

If the tournament does happen again, the likes of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah could rub shoulders with Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan and Shaheen Afridi as part of Asia XI.

The 2005 Asia XI was captained by the former Pakistan batter Inzamam-ul-Haq. It also included leading stars such as Kumar Sangakkara, Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, Shoaib Akhtar, Anil Kumble, Shahid Afridi among others.

Mahela Jayawardene led the 2007 Asia XI side, also featuring Sehwag, Sanath Jayasuriya, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, MS Dhoni and others.