Asian Games 2026 cricket: can India win both gold medals again in Aichi-Nagoya?

India’s women won the country’s first gold medal of the 2026 Asian Games on 22 September, beating Sri Lanka by 147 runs in the final at Kōrogi Sports Park in Nisshin. Six days later, the men reached the semi-finals without bowling a ball, after rain washed out their quarter-final against Afghanistan. They play Sri Lanka on 1 October, with the gold medal match on 3 October.

India won both cricket golds at Hangzhou 2023. Repeating the double now depends on two more wins from Shreyas Iyer’s side, or on the weather. When a knockout match is abandoned at these Games, the higher-seeded team goes through, and that rule has now decided all four quarter-finals. Most operators void a single-match bet when play never starts, but a bet on India to win the tournament stays live and benefits from the seeding rule. That difference matters to anyone looking at the gold medal market rather than the semi-final alone, and the 4rabet promo code for Indian players applies to a first deposit on either. The forecast for Nisshin will count as much as the team sheet on Thursday.

India women beat Sri Lanka by 147 runs for the first gold of Aichi-Nagoya

The final was a repeat of the Hangzhou 2023 gold medal match, and it was over well before the end. India made 216 for 3, the highest total in women’s cricket at the Asian Games, beating the 202 for 4 Hong Kong China posted against Mongolia in 2023. Smriti Mandhana scored 79 off 45 balls, Shafali Verma 48 off 29, and Richa Ghosh finished unbeaten on 49 off 22.

Sri Lanka were bowled out for 69 in 15.4 overs, with India’s spinners doing most of the damage. Harmanpreet Kaur’s side had reached the final by beating Bangladesh by 114 runs, a match built on Shafali Verma’s 100 off 49 balls, after an eight-wicket win over hosts Japan in the quarter-final. Two Asian Games, two gold medals for the women’s team.

India men reach the semi-finals without a ball bowled against Afghanistan

The men’s tournament started on 24 September with ten teams. India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh were seeded straight into the quarter-finals, where they were joined by the top two from each of the two first-round groups.

India’s quarter-final against Afghanistan, the Hangzhou 2023 silver medallists, never started. Persistent rain on 28 September forced the match to be abandoned, and India advanced as the higher seed. Pakistan went through the same way against Hong Kong China. On 29 September, Sri Lanka’s quarter-final against Nepal was called off before the toss, and Bangladesh’s against Malaysia was also washed out. Sri Lanka, ninth in the ICC T20I rankings against Nepal’s 14th, went through on seeding.

All four quarter-finals were abandoned without a ball bowled, so none of the four semi-finalists has played a single delivery in the tournament. Nepal, Afghanistan, Malaysia and Hong Kong go home with one win, one defeat and one washout each.

Shreyas Iyer’s squad, with VVS Laxman as stand-in head coach

Shreyas Iyer captains the men’s squad, with Tilak Varma as vice-captain and Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, Ishan Kishan, Shivam Dube, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Axar Patel and Washington Sundar among the players named. VVS Laxman is in charge as stand-in head coach for the Games.

Because of the washout, this group will go into the semi-final without a single competitive match together in Aichi. The first time Iyer’s side takes the field at these Games will be with a place in the gold medal match at stake.

India vs Sri Lanka and Pakistan vs Bangladesh in the semi-finals

Both semi-finals are on Thursday 1 October: Pakistan against Bangladesh at 9am local time, then India against Sri Lanka at 2pm, which is 10am in India. Pakistan have also left out several senior players, with no Babar Azam, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf or Naseem Shah in their Asian Games squad.

An India against Pakistan gold medal match on 3 October is therefore possible, but both sides would reach it with changed line-ups. The semi-final losers play for bronze the same day.

The Hangzhou precedent: a gold medal decided without a result

The seeding rule has already decided an Asian Games cricket title. In Hangzhou in October 2023, the men’s final between India and Afghanistan ended with no result after rain, and India, led by Ruturaj Gaikwad, took the gold medal as the higher-ranked team.

Sri Lanka’s record at that tournament was less kind: they went out in the quarter-finals to Afghanistan. Three years later, the same rule has carried India’s men through a quarter-final. India have now won all three cricket golds decided across the last two Asian Games, and two of those runs were helped by rain at some stage. The women’s 147-run final this year shows the other side of that record. The men still need to beat Sri Lanka on Thursday. If the semi-final is washed out as well, India go through to the final on seeding.