Cricket retained for 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games in Japan

Staff Report

LAHORE: The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) has retained cricket for the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, to be held in Japan from September 19 to October 4. The matches will be held in Aichi Prefecture but the exact venues are yet to be finalised. “The latest development in the compilation of the sports programme came at the 41st meeting of the AINAGOC Board of Directors at Nagoya City Hall on Monday, April 28, when cricket and Mixed Martial Arts were both formally approved,” the OCA said. This will be the fourth time that cricket will feature in the Asian Games. The first two times – at Guangzhou 2010 and Incheon 2014 – the games were not granted an international status. But when cricket returned to the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou, the matches were deemed T20 internationals.

In the men’s category in 2023, India won the gold, Afghanistan silver and Bangladesh bronze. In the women’s, India and Bangladesh were once again the gold and bronze medallists, while the silver went to Sri Lanka. The other countries participating across the two categories were Pakistan, Nepal, Maldives, Mongolia, Hong Kong, Japan, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. T20 cricket will also feature at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics as a six-team competition in both the men’s and the women’s categories. There is no clarity yet on the qualification criteria, though.