The twentieth Asian Video games will happen in Japan in 2026 from September 19 to October 4, with cricket set to be part of the multi-nation occasion. An official affirmation on this regard is predicted throughout this week’s conferences between the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) and the organising committee (AINAGOC) of the Aichi-Nagoya Video games.
“The OCA Board will nonetheless must approve it. Though we predict that’s only a formality. However till they do it isn’t one hundred pc,” a Japan Cricket Affiliation (JCA) official advised Cricbuzz on Wednesday (April 30) forward of the conferences. An OCA assertion mentioned “the assembly will run from Wednesday, April 30 to Friday, Could 2, with the third OCA Coordination Committee Assembly happening over two days on Could 1-2.”
Cricket can be among the many 41 sports activities on the Video games, and 15,000 athletes and officers from the OCA’s 45 Nationwide Olympic Committees can be a part of it. The Indian males’s and ladies’s groups are the reigning gold medallists, having received the highest medals within the 2022 Asian Video games held in Hangzhou, China in September-October 2023. The earlier version was initially postponed as a result of COVID-19 pandemic.
A press release by the OCA says, “The most recent growth within the compilation of the sports activities programme got here on the forty first assembly of the AINAGOC Board of Administrators at Nagoya Metropolis Corridor on Monday, April 28, when cricket and Combined Martial Arts (MMA) have been each formally authorized.”
Like final time, cricket can be performed within the T20 format. A name on the precise variety of groups collaborating can be taken on the conferences. Within the Hangzhou Video games, 14 males and 9 ladies groups took half within the competitors.
A pertinent query arising for the time being is the place the cricket matches can be held. The organisers would possibly select to go in with a modular stadium, taking a leaf out of the ICC’s ebook. In the course of the 2024 T20 World Cup, the cricket governing physique used a modular stadium which was constructed on the grounds of Eisenhower Park in East Meadow, New York, in Nassau County on Lengthy Island. The stand and modular infrastructure of the non permanent stadium was dismantled after the marquee occasion. Nonetheless, the cricket floor stays intact, with the drop-in pitch being changed by synthetic turf to ease upkeep. The JCA official mentioned that the precise location can be determined in the course of the conferences.
“The venue for cricket can be in Aichi prefecture however the actual location has not been determined. Curiosity can be excessive, not solely due to cricket’s reputation in South Asia particularly but in addition as a result of the T20 (20 overs per aspect) format can be included within the Los Angeles Olympic Video games in 2028. This can be cricket’s first look within the Olympics since 1900 in Paris, the place Nice Britain beat France by 158 runs within the closing of the two-team event,” the OCA assertion says.
India’s males’s group received the gold medal within the final version beneath Ruturaj Gaikwad’s management. The senior gamers have been unavailable as they have been getting ready for the 2023 ODI World Cup. In the meantime, a full-strength Indian ladies’s group bagged the gold medal beneath Harmanpreet Kaurs captaincy.