Nagoya: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have qualified directly for the knockout round of men’s cricket at the 2026 Asian Games, with Afghanistan, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal and Oman competing in the opening round for the remaining spots.
The draws and groups for the men’s and women’s cricket matches were announced on Thursday. Ten teams will participate in the men’s competition and eight teams will participate in the women’s competition.
The women’s competition will begin with the quarter-finals, with India taking on Japan, Bangladesh taking on China, Sri Lanka taking on Malaysia and Pakistan taking on Thailand. The tournament will be held from September 17 to 22.
The men’s tournament, scheduled from September 24 to October 1, will begin with two preliminary groups. Group A has Afghanistan, Japan and Nepal, while Group B has Hong Kong, Malaysia and Oman.
The top two teams from each group will advance to the knockout round, where they will join Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
All matches in both the tournaments will be played in Nagoya, Japan and will be contested in T20 format.
India enters the 2023 Asian Games as the defending champions in both the men’s and women’s categories after winning gold medals.
In the men’s final in Hangzhou, Afghanistan reached 112-5 in 18.2 overs when the match was abandoned due to rain. As the highest seeded team, India was awarded the gold medal as per the tournament rules.
In the women’s final, India defeated Sri Lanka by 19 runs to win the title.