It was established in 1983 when the Asian Cricket Council was founded as a measure to promote goodwill between Asian countries. It was originally scheduled to be held every two years. The Asia Cup is the only continental championship in cricket and the winning team becomes the champions of Asia.

After the Asian Cricket Council was downsized by the ICC in 2015, it was announced that Asia Cup tournaments will be played on rotation basis in ODI and T20 format. As a result, 2016 events was the first tournament in T20I format and was played between five teams just ahead of 2016 ICC . The 2016 edition of the Asia Cup tournament was held in Bangladesh for the third consecutive time from 24 February to 6 March. The final was held on 6 March 2016. India won the final by beating Bangladesh by 8 wickets in the final held at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium situated in Mirpur locality, Dhaka, Bangladesh, M.S. Dhoni proved his effectiveness once again by smashing a couple of boundaries towards the end and putting a halt to the Bengali Campaign. It is for the sixth time that India won the Asia cup title in 2016.

India won all of its matches played in Asia Cup 2016 beating Bangladesh 2 times, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and UAE. Virat Kohli showed his maturity in the game against Pakistan; India was reeling at 8 runs for the loss of 3 wickets while chasing and the opposition started to believe that they were still in the game while defending a sub par total, only for Virat Kohli to come in and send the ball all over the ground and completely took away the game from them.