India pencil in top men, women cricketers for Asian Games

NEW DELHI: With an eye on crick et as a medal sport at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, India is all set to send its top men and women cricketers to this year’s Asian Games in Japan, with regular captains Suryakumar Yadav and Harmanpreet Kaur set to lead their respective sides in the T20 format competition.

It’s been learnt that the Indian cricket board (BCCI) sent the names of established cricketers to the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) as part of the official contingent long list, which will be forwarded to the Games’ Organising Committee (OC) at the end of next month. “India will send its ‘A’ team when the final names are decided in May end. The BCCI has sent the names of leading men and women cricketers to the IOA. All the top cricketers will be available for se lection,” a source told TOI.



Sources said the men’s long list includes current T20 skipper Yadav, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy, Washington Sundar, Axar Patel and Rinku Singh.

Similarly, the women’s long list comprises Harmanpreet, vice-captain Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma, Renuka Thakur, Sneh Rana, Deepti Shar ma, Richa Ghosh, Arundhati Reddy, Shreyanka Patil, Kranti Gaud and Sree Charani.

“India are the defending champions, having won gold in both men and women categories at the Hangzhou Asiad in 2023. With the inclusion of cricket at the LA Games, multisport events such as Asiad and Olympics have become important,” the source added.

India’s all format coach Gautam Gambhir has already indicated that winning gold at the LA Games remains one of his major goals.

On earlier occasions, the BCCI looked at sending a second-best men’s team comprising mostly upcoming stars to multisport events due to a crammed international calendar. However, in the women’s team competition, the board usually preferred sending the senior ‘A’ list cricketers.

“This time, there are no international fixtures planned for both teams during the duration of the Games,” the source said. The Asian Games will be held in the Aichi and Nagoya prefectures of Japan from Sept 19-Oct 4. Cricket will be contested among 10 men’s and eight women’s teams, and the matches will take place at the Korogi Athletic Park in Aichi prefecture.


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