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Mumbai: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced the strong squad of the Indian men’s cricket team for the Asian Games 2026 to be held in Japan. After captaining the T20 series against Ireland and England, Shreyas Iyer will lead the Indian team in this Mahakumbh as well. Young batsman Tilak Verma has been appointed vice-captain in this team, while Vaibhav Suryavanshi, who has scored runs in the IPL, is also a part of this team. The most important thing is that star fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah is going to make a comeback in Team India directly through the Asian Games after IPL 2026.

Asian Games schedule will clash with West Indies series

The Asian Games 2026 is to be held from September 19 to October 4 in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. The schedule of this tournament is clashing with India’s tour of West Indies. India has to play a three-match ODI series against West Indies from September 27 to October 3 and then a five-match T20 series from October 6. This is the reason why BCCI has given the green signal to this separate team for the Asian Games.

The competition will be held in T20 format, 10 teams will participate

The men’s cricket competition of the Asian Games will start in T20 format from September 24 and the title match will be played on October 3. This time a total of 10 teams will contest for the gold medal, which include India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Oman. Qualifier matches will be played between 24 and 26 September, followed by quarter-finals on 28-29 September and semi-finals on 1 October.

India has a chance to repeat history

The Indian team will enter this tournament as the defending champion. Earlier, in the Asian Games held in Hangzhou, China (2023), India had won gold medals in both men’s and women’s categories. Then the final match of the men’s category was canceled due to rain and India was declared the winner on the basis of better ranking. Whereas, in the women’s category, the Indian team won the gold by defeating Sri Lanka by 19 runs. This time the women’s cricket competition will be held between 17th to 22nd September, in which 8 teams including India will participate.

Full Indian team for Asian Games 2026

Shreyas Iyer (captain), Tilak Verma (vice-captain), Abhishek Sharma, Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Sanju Samson, Ishan Kishan, Shivam Dubey, Nitish Reddy, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Varun Chakraborty, Ravi Bishnoi, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah.