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. The qualifying tournaments for both Men’s and Women’s competitions were organized by Asian Cricket Council (ACC) in May and June 2026.

Women’s National teams of Thailand, Malaysia and China qualified through the Qualifier held in Malaysia in May 2026, while Men’s National teams of Nepal, Malaysia, Hong Kong-China and Oman qualified through the Qualifier held in Singapore in June 2026.

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. The Finalists and the winner of the 3rd/4th play-off in both Men’s and Women’s events will get the medals. The groupings for both Men’s and Women’s competitions will be taking place by a Team draw on 23rd July 2026.

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.

Men’s National Teams of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have got direct entries into the quarterfinals stage, while the Qualifiers and Afghanistan will have to compete in the group stages to claim the four (4) spots into the quarterfinal stage.

Group A: Nepal, Afghanistan and Japan

Group B: Malaysia, Hong Kong-China, Oman

Asian Games 2026 Cricket Schedule – Men’s

24th September 2026: Japan vs Afghanistan (Scorecard)

26th September 2026: Nepal vs Japan (Scorecard)

Asian Games 2026 Cricket Schedule – Women’s

17th September 2026: India vs Japan (Scorecard) ; Bangladesh vs China (Scorecard)

18th September 2026: Sri Lanka vs Malaysia (Scorecard) ; Pakistan vs Thailand (Scorecard)

20th September 2026: Semifinal#1 (Scorecard) ; Semifinal#2 (Scorecard)

22nd September 2026: Bronze Medal (Scorecard) ; Gold/Silver Medal (Scorecard)

Duleep Mendis, Oman Cricket’s Chief Development Officer, expressed confidence in this venture: “Our aim is to cultivate a national team composed solely of Omani players. We’ve meticulously chosen this initial group of 16 individuals with an aim to have a pool of 20. We will be providing them with the same resources and opportunities available to our national senior team. We have started this mission to have an Omani team play at the Asian Games and at the Olympics in future. These 16 have been selected from the seven all-Omani teams that feature in our domestic league. The seven teams also play an all-Omani league among themselves. We will begin their training sessions from mid-December, and we hope that some of them will be good enough to play for the senior national team in the years to come at the ICC events.”

Alongside training sessions, plans are underway for bilateral series against lower-ranked T20I teams and a GCC tournament for the team.

All-Omani Development Squad: Sufyan Mehmood, Sadiq Abdul Majeed, Majid Hussain, Qais Khalid, Arif Abdul Majeed, Waheed Khalid, Issa Raheem Al Balushi, Naveed Abdul Majeed, Waleed Raheem Al Balushi, Shoaib Ismail Al Balushi, Zubair Ali Akbar Al Balushi, Mohammed Ali Akbar Al Balushi, Imran Ismail Al Balushi, Moeed Abdul Majeed, Ahmed Al Zadjali and Waseem Ismail Al Balushi