How many teams will play cricket at Asian Games 2026
The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) and Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games and Asian Para Games Organizing Committee (AINAGOC) will be hosting the sports discipline of Cricket during the 2026 Asian Games programme, to be co-hosted by Japan’s Aichi Prefecture and its capital Nagoya from September 19th – October 04th, 2026. At the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) Meeting held in Bangladesh on 24th July 2025, it was decided that the Top Ten (10) Men’s and Top Eight (8) Women’s teams from across the continent will take part in the competition, who will be qualifying directly based on their ICC T20I team rankings.
Asian Games 2026 cricket teams and tournament format
The Women’s event will take place from September 17th – 22nd, with all teams starting directly in a knock-out format in the quarterfinals. The Men’s event will be taking place from September 24th – October 03rd, 2026. Four (4) teams from the Ten (10) will get automatic byes into the quarterfinals, while the remaining Six (6) teams will be divided into Two (2) groups of Three (3) teams each. The Teams will play each other in the group in a single round-robin format, following which the Top Two (2) teams from both the groups will advance to the quarterfinals stage. The Finalists and the winner of the 3rd/4th play-off in both Men’s and Women’s events will get the medals.
The previous edition of Asian Games in Hangzhou, which featured cricket as a medal discipline, did not see any participation from any Gulf region cricket boards, due to player eligibility rules of Regional Games, which are different to ICC eligibility rules. Hence, As per the discussion held in 2024 between the Associate Cricket boards in the Gulf region (UAE, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain), all countries will be developing their own Squads made up of Nationals, with the intention to field them in future Asian Games or Olympics (if there is any qualification events for that). Best players from these squads will also be integrated in the senior squad for ICC events as well. Bi-lateral series will happen for the Nationals squads every now and then and also plans are on the table for Gulf region tournament for all Nationals squads of each member.
More to follow.