Oman Cricket to host 2026 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Asia-EAP Qualifier in October 2025

Oman Cricket (OC) will be hosting the 2026 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Asia – East Asia-Pacific combined Qualifier (Asia-EAP Qualifier) from October 08th – 17th, 2025. OC will host Men’s National teams of Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Kuwait, Malaysia, Japan, Qatar and United Arab Emirates in the 9-Nation tournament, with three (3) qualification spots on offer towards the 2026 event in India and Sri Lanka. While Nepal, Oman and Papua New Guinea were direct entrants in the combined Qualifier based on their participation and final finishing positions in the 2024 Men’s T20 World Cup in the US and the Caribbean Islands, while the teams of Samoa, Kuwait, Malaysia, Japan, Qatar and United Arab Emirates have earned their place in the combined event through the Asia and East Asia-Pacific (EAP) sub-regional qualifiers held in 2024.

This takes away the uniqueness regarding the history of T20 World Cups, in terms of guaranteed representation from each of the five ICC regions (Asia, Europe, Africa, East Asia-Pacific and Americas) from the previous edition held in 2024 (instead of the Global Qualifier format used in the previous two (2) editions). The decision to merge the Asia and East Asia-Pacific (EAP) Qualifiers was taken during the 2024 ICC Annual General Meeting (AGM), which was not taken well by the Board officials of the countries based in the EAP region.

The nine teams are split into three groups of three, with the top two (2) teams from each group progressing to the Super Six stage, which will be played from 12th – 17th October. At the end of the Super Six stage, the top three (3) teams will earn their place in the Men’s T20 World Cup 2026, to be held in India and Sri Lanka. Group 1 features UAE, Malaysia and Qatar while Group 2 has Nepal and Kuwait along with Japan. The hosts, Oman, are in Group 3 along with Papua New Guinea and Samoa. In the Super Six stage, both teams from a group will play the other four (4) teams from the other two (2) groups.

Oman, Nepal and Kuwait have scheduled T20Is before the start of the offical warm-up fixtures, and will be coming into the tournament with game-time in their hands. Samoa Men will be travelling to Malaysia and play couple of fixtures with the host’s A team, and then go to Oman for the Qualifiers.

Super6 Stage Schedule

12th October 2025: Oman vs Qatar (Scorecard) ; UAE vs Nepal (Scorecard) ; Samoa vs Japan (Scorecard)

13th October 2025: UAE vs Oman (Scorecard) ; Qatar vs Nepal (Scorecard)

15th October 2025: Japan vs Qatar (Scorecard) ; Samoa vs UAE (Scorecard) ; Nepal vs Oman (Scorecard)

16th October 2025: UAE vs Japan (Scorecard) ; Qatar vs Samoa (Scorecard)

17th October 2025: Oman vs Japan (Scorecard) ; Nepal vs Samoa (Scorecard)

Group Stage Schedule

08th October 2025: Oman vs Samoa (Scorecard) ; UAE v Qatar (Scorecard) ; Nepal vs Kuwait (Scorecard)

09th October 2025: Malaysia vs Qatar (Scorecard) ; Kuwait vs Japan (Scorecard) ; PNG vs Samoa (Scorecard)

10th October 2025: UAE vs Malaysia (Scorecard) ; Nepal vs Japan (Scorecard) ; Oman vs PNG (Scorecard)

Warm-up Fixtures

03rd October 2025: Oman vs Kuwait (Scorecard) ; UAE vs PNG (Scorecard) ; Japan vs Samoa (Scorecard)

04th October 2025: Samoa vs Malaysia (Scorecard) ; Nepal vs Oman (Scorecard)

05th October 2025: UAE vs Japan (Scorecard) ; Kuwait vs Qatar (Scorecard)

06th October 2025: Qatar vs Nepal (Scorecard) ; PNG vs Malaysia (Scorecard)

2026 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Asia – East Asia-Pacific (EAP) Qualifier Schedule

Samoa: Caleb Jasmat (Captain), Ross Taylor, Darius Visser, Sean Solia, Daniel Burgess, Douglas Finau, Sam French, Kurtis Hynam-Nyberg, Ben Mailata, Noah Mead, Solomon Nash, Samson Sola, Fereti Sululoto, Saumani Tiai and Ili Tugaga

Qatar: Mirza Baig (Captain), Ikramullah Khan, Owais Ahmed, Daniel Louis, Zubair Ali, Imal Liyanage, Saqlain Arshard, Muhammad Murad, Muhammad Asim, Mujeeb-ur-Rehman, Shariq Azam, Muhammad Tanveer, Amir Farooq, Arif Nasiruddin and Shahzaib Jamil

Kuwait: Mohamed Aslam (Captain), Usman Patel, Ravija Sandaruwan, Meet Bhavsar, Mohamed Shafeeq, Yasin Patel, Bilal Tahir, Shiraz Khan, Nimish Lathief, Ali Zaheer, Clinto Anto, Naveenraj, Muhammad Umar, Anudeep Chenthamara and Muhammad Aqif

Malaysia: Syed Aziz Syed Mubarak (Captain), Muhammad Amir Azim, Pavandeep Singh, Virandeep Singh, Ahmad Faiz, Muhammad Syahadat Ramli, Ainool Hafizs, Arif Ullah, Khizar Hayat, Vijay Unni, Muhammad Haziq Aiman, Muhammad Wafiq Zarbani, Aslam Khan Malik, Aqeel Wahid and Sharvin Muniandy

Oman: Jatinder Singh (Captain), Vinayak Shukla, Mohammed Nadeem, Aamir Kaleem, Hammad Mirza, Sufyan Mehmood, Shakeel Ahmad, Aryan Bisht, Samay Shrivastava, Hassnain Ali Shah, Nadeem Khan, Zikriya Islam, Shah Faisal, Hasnain ul Wahab and Jitenkumar Ramanandi

Nepal: Rohit Paudel (Captain), Dipendra Singh Airee, Aasif Sheikh, Sandeep Lamichhane, Kushal Bhurtel, Lokesh Bam, Kushal Malla, Md Adil Alam, Aarif Sheikh, Sundeep Jora, Karan KC, Nandan Yadav, Gulshan Jha, Shahab Alam, Lalit Rajbansi and Sompal Kami

Papua New Guinea: Assad Vala (Captain), Sese Bau, Doko Rupa, Boio Ray, Patrick Nou, Hila Vare, Damien Ravu, Gaudi Toka, Malcolm Aporo, Alei Nao, Kabua Morea, Michael Charlie, John Kariko, Ainui Loi and Lega Siaka

Japan: Kendel Kadowaki-Fleming (Captain), Abhishek Anand, Benjamin Gou Ito-Davis, Charlie Hara-Hinze, Wataru Miyauchi, Esam Rahman, Sabaorish Ravichandran, Reo Sakurano-Thomas, Abdul Samad, Alexander Shirai-Patmore, Shoma Sugaya-Slater, Declan Suzuki-McComb, Ibrahim Takahashi, Makoto Taniyama and Lachlan Yamamoto-Lake

United Arab Emirates: Muhammad Waseem (captain), Alishan Sharafu, Aryansh Sharma, Basil Hameed, Dhruv Parashar, Jonathan Figy, Haider Ali, Harshit Kaushik, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Irfan, Rahul Chopra, Rohid Khan, Simranjeet Singh and Zahid Ali

Kuwait Men’s Tour of Oman Schedule

29th and 30th September 2025: Oman vs Kuwait – 1st T20I (Scorecard) and 2nd T20I (Scorecard)

Samoa Men’s Tour of Malaysia Schedule

26th and 28th September 2025: Samoa vs Malaysia A – 1st T20 (Scorecard) and 2nd T20 (Scorecard)