India Men Asian Games 2026 Cricket Schedule: Matches, Dates, Time & Squad

The cricket fans have set their eyes on the Indian men’s cricket team for Asian Games 2026. The men cricket tournament for Asian Games 2026 is starting on September 24 to October 3 at Aichi-Nagoya region of Japan. India is selected as the seeded teams in the tournament and that’s why they do not have to participate in the group stages. The campaign for India will start on September 28 with quarter-final. According to the official schedule quarter-final of India will be against the second-placed team from Group A.

India is entering the tournament as the defending champions after winning that gold medal at the previous Asian Games is Hangzhou.

India Men’s Asian Games 2026 Schedule

Following is the schedule of India men’s cricket matches:

Semi-final and medal matches will depend on India’s quarter-final results.

India’s First Match: Quarter-Final

India will start its Asian Games campaign from September 28, 2026. The team will face the second placed team in Group A after the group matches. There are teams like Afghanistan, Japan and Nepal in Group A and their matches are on September 24,25 and 26. The match will be at 13:30Japan time and 10:00 AM IST.

Asian Games 2026 Men’s Cricket Format

There are a total of 10 teams participating in Men’s cricket competition. Teams are divided in two preliminary groups:

Group A

·       Afghanistan

·       Japan

·       Nepal

Group B

·       Hong Kong, China

·       Malaysia

·       Oman

 The top two teams of both these groups will qualify for the knockout stage. Along with them India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka got direct entry to quarter-finals as the seeded teams. This means that India does not have to play group-stage matches.

India’s Knockout Route

The knockout route of India is starting September 28. If India wins the quarter-final then they will play the second semi-final on October 1. According to official schedule CKT16 and CKT17 winners will face each other in CKT20 semi-final and CKT16 is India’s quarter-final whereas CKT17 is the quarter-final between Sri Lanka and Group A winner.

If India wins the semi-final they will move on to finals which is on October 3 but if they lose the finals they will play for bronze medal match on the same day.

 India Men’s Asian Games 2026 Squad

In India’s Asian Games squad along with international experienced players there is room for young talents also.

Indian Squad:

• Shreyas Iyer – Captain
• Abhishek Sharma
• Sanju Samson
• Ishan Kishan
• Shivam Dube
• Tilak Varma
• Vipraj Nigam
• Axar Patel
• Washington Sundar
• Ravi Bishnoi
• Jasprit Bumrah
• Arshdeep Singh
• Vaibhav Sooryavanshi
• Yash Thakur
• Nitish Kumar Reddy

However, there were changes after the squad announcement. Harshit Rana was ruled out due to injury and Yash Thakur was added as a replacement. In the later updates Nitish Kumar Reddy was also ruled out and Vipraj Nigam was included.

Shreyas Iyer to Lead Team India

Shreyas Iyer will lead team India for Asian Games 2026. He also got the captaincy responsibility for India’s T20I setup. This will be an important tournament for Shreyas Iyer as India will be the defend their title this year.

Star Player to Watch

Jasprit Bumrah is a very experienced name in India’s bowling attack. His presence provides a bowling stability to the bowling lineup of India. The batting lineup is also an aggressive one as India have Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Tilak Verma. Abhishek and Vaibhav can be a great opening pair and with their attacking gaming style they can put pressure on any bowling lineup whereas Tilak Verma is one of the best finishers India has got for this format.

Why India’s Campaign is Important?

The T20 format of Asian Games provides an opportunity of playing in an international tournament environment. Indian squad has a combination of experienced as well as young prospects. Under the captaincy of Shreyas Iyer India will defend its title in Japan. The first major test of this campaign will be the quarter-final on September 28 because only after that match the route to semi-final and final will be clear.