Asian Games 2026 cricket schedule

The Asian Games 2026 cricket schedule was announced on Tuesday, with matches set to be held between September 17 and October 3.

Japan is set to host the Asian Games 2026 in Aichi-Nagoya from September 19 to October 4. However, the sporting action will get underway nine days before the official Opening Ceremony as per the competition schedule revealed by the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games Organising Committee (AINAGOC).

Cricket at the Asian Games 2026 will be played in T20 format and will be hosted at the Korogi Athletic Park in the Aichi prefecture.

The women’s cricket tournament begins on September 17 and the medal matches will be held on the 22nd.

With eight teams set to compete in the women’s cricket competition at the Asian Games, it will be a direct knockout tournament starting from the quarter-finals.

The men’s cricket tournament will start from September 24 and conclude with the medal matches on October 13. It will be a 10-team affair and there will be three days of preliminary matches before the quarter-finals.

If the men’s tournament follows the same format as the Asian Games 2023 in Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China, the top four seeded teams will directly start from the quarters. The remaining six teams could play preliminary matches divided into groups to determine the other four quarter-finalists.

All matchdays will have double headers with the morning game starting at 9 AM local time or 5:30 AM in India and the afternoon match starting from 2 PM in Japan or 10:30 AM Indian Standard Time (IST).

Asian Games 2026 cricket schedule

All in Indian Standard Time (IST)

Asian Games 2026 women’s cricket schedule

While the list of cricket teams at the Asian Games has yet to be confirmed, qualification is expected to be based on international rankings.

Cricket will feature at the Asian Games for the fourth time in 2026. Despite its immense popularity across the continent, the sport has appeared in only three of the previous 19 editions of the Asian Games.

It made its debut as a medal sport at Guangzhou 2010 and returned at Incheon 2014, though those tournaments were not granted international status.

After being dropped from the programme at Jakarta 2018, cricket returned at Hangzhou 2023, where all matches were officially recognised as internationals by the International Cricket Council (ICC), the global governing body of the sport.

All three Asian Games cricket tournaments to date have featured separate competitions for men and women, played in the T20 format.

At Hangzhou 2023, India won gold medals in both categories, while Afghanistan and Sri Lanka claimed silver in the men’s and women’s events, respectively, and Bangladesh secured bronze in both.

Cricket is also set to make a long-awaited return to the Olympic Games at LA 2028, more than a century after its only previous appearance at Paris 1900, when Great Britain defeated France in a one-off Test match to win gold.

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