Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka will walk straight into the knockout rounds of the men’s cricket competition at the 2026 Asian Games, skipping the group stage entirely.
Six other teams, Afghanistan, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal and Oman, will have to fight it out in a preliminary round to reach that same stage.
Organisers have revealed that the full draw for both the men’s and women’s competitions on Thursday. Ten nations will battle for men’s honours, while the women’s field is set at eight teams.
On the women’s side, the tournament kicks off directly with quarter-finals. India takes on Japan, Bangladesh squares off against China, Sri Lanka meets Malaysia, and Pakistan faces Thailand. The matches run from September 17 to 22.
The men’s competition follows from September 24 through October 1, starting with a group phase for the six non-seeded teams. Afghanistan, Japan and Nepal sit in Group A, while Hong Kong, Malaysia and Oman make up Group B. Only the top two finishers from each group earn a spot in the knockouts, where they’ll run into the four seeded nations waiting for them.
Nagoya, Japan, will host every match across both tournaments, all played in the T20 format.
India enters as the defending champion in both categories from 2023. The men’s final did not finish after rain wiped it out with Afghanistan sitting at 112 for 5 after 18.2 overs, while India took the gold simply by virtue of ranking higher than their opponents at the time.
