India's men's cricket team enters the 2026 Asian Games straight into the knockouts, with their quarter-final at the Kōrogi Sports Park in Nisshin, Japan, set for September 28. As one of four seeded teams — alongside Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh — India received an automatic bye through the preliminary round-robin stage, and now wait to learn their exact opponent once Group A's placings are finalised.
India's quarter-final assignment goes to the runner-up from Group A, a pool contested by Afghanistan, Japan and Nepal in a single round-robin format that ran through September 24-26. With Group A's final fixtures completing only on the eve of the knockouts, the identity of India's first opponent was still being settled as the preliminary stage wrapped up — a detail that will be confirmed once the last round-robin results are in.
India travel with Shreyas Iyer as captain and Tilak Varma as vice-captain, leading a squad that includes Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, Ishan Kishan and Shivam Dube in the batting and finishing roles, with Axar Patel, Washington Sundar and Ravi Bishnoi providing the spin options. The pace attack is built around Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh and Yash Thakur — the last a late addition after Harshit Rana was ruled out with a rectus femoris strain. The squad's biggest talking point remains Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, who at 15 became the youngest player ever picked for an Indian team at an international event.
Unlike a group-stage tournament, the Asian Games format gives seeded teams no margin for a slow start — India's campaign begins and can end in the same match. Sri Lanka meet the Group A winner on September 29, while Bangladesh face the Group B winner in the tournament's final quarter-final, rounding out a knockout draw that pits every seeded side against an associate nation fresh off the round-robin.
India arrive as the defending men's champions, having won gold on their tournament debut at the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou, and a repeat would add to a strong 2026 for Indian cricket at the Games after the women's team retained their own title in Japan earlier this month. For the associate nations in the men's draw, a win over any seeded team would be a landmark result heading into the tournament's business end on October 3.
Live scores from India's quarter-final and the rest of the Asian Games draw are available on SportGod's live matches page, with AI-powered previews on SportGod's predictions page and more tournament coverage on SportGod's blog.
Squad, bye status and quarter-final draw details are verified against same-day tournament reporting, current as of September 26, 2026.
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