Virat Kohli India
Virat Kohli will lead India in MS Dhoni's absence. BCCI

Pakistan will look to defend their Asia Cup title, while the likes of India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh will be determined to prise the trophy away from the grasp of their rivals, with Afghanistan debuting in the continental tournament and with it making the Asia Cup 2014 a five-team event.

Plenty of thrills and spills are expected, with no team exactly going into the tournament as the overwhelming favourites.

India will be without their talisman MS Dhoni, who is injured, with Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina also missing the flight to Bangladesh, and it remains to be seen just how Virat Kohli handles captaining the side in such a high-profile tournament.

There were no major surprises in the Pakistan and Sri Lanka squads, with Bangladesh set to be without Shakib Al Hasan for the first two matches of the Asia Cup due to suspension.

The Bangladesh coaching staff and skipper Mushfiqur Rahim have asked the Bangladesh Cricket Board to reduce the ban, so it remains to be seen if Shakib will feature against India and Afghanistan - the first two matches for the hosts in the tournament, after the all-rounder sat out the final one-day international against Sri Lanka in their three-match series.

The Asia Cup will be followed by the World T20, also to be held in Bangladesh, and even if the format might be different, the teams, who more or less have the same squads for both events, will be keen to take some serious momentum into the big ICC event by clinching the Asia Cup title.

Below is a full list of all the five squads for the tournament.

Squads:

Bangladesh: Mushfiqur Rahim (capt), Shakib Al Hasan, Al-Amin Hussain, Anamul Haque, Abdul Razzak, Mominul Haque, Mashrafe Mortaza, Imrul Kayes, Arafat Sunny, Naeem Islam, Nasir Hossain, Rubel Hossain, Shamsur Rahman, Sohag Gazi, Ziaur Rahman.

India: Virat Kohli (capt), Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ambati Rayudu, Ajinkya Rahane, Dinesh Karthik, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Varun Aaron, Stuart Binny, Amit Mishra, Ishwar Pandey.

Pakistan: Misbah-ul-Haq (capt), Mohammad Hafeez, Ahmed Shehzad, Sharjeel Khan, Shahid Afridi, Umar Akmal, Sohaib Maqsood, Fawad Alam, Saeed Ajmal, Abdur Rehman, Junaid Khan, Umar Gul, Anwar Ali, Bilawal Bhatti, Mohammad Talha.

Sri Lanka: Angelo Mathews (capt), Dinesh Chandimal (vice- capt), Lasith Malinga, Kusal Perera, Kumar Sangakkara (wk), Mahela Jayawardene, Lahiru Thirimanne, Thisara Perera, Suranga Lakmal, Chaturanga De Silva, Sachithra Senanayake, Ajantha Mendis, Ashan Priyanjan, Dhammika Prasad.

Afghanistan: Mohammad Nabi (capt), Naowroz Mangal, Asghar Stanikzai, Dawlat Zadran, Fazal Niazai, Hamid Hassan, Hamza Hotak, Karim Sadiq, Mirwaiz Ashraf, Mohammad Shahzad, Najibullah Zadran, Noor Ali Zadran, Rahmat Shah, Samiullah Shenwari, Shapoor Zadran.