The Indian team will defend their cricket title at the Aichi-Nagoya 2026 Asian Games from the quarter-final stage, ensuring plenty to watch once the T20 competition gets underway in Japan. It is essential for all those following cricket markets via 1xBet to be aware that the path to the quarter-finals stage for the Indian team differs in men’s and women’s tournaments.
While the men’s team has been seeded straight into the quarter-finals, the women’s tournament commences at the quarter-finals stage, so all eight teams get to compete at this stage. India are the defending champions of both tournaments, having won gold medals in the men’s and women’s tournaments of the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games.
There are 10 teams in the men’s team event that is supposed to take place between September 24 and October 1. The 4 seeds for the tournament are India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka; these teams have been allotted the positions in the quarters right away. There are going to be 6 other teams who will compete in the qualifying stage, which will see 2 teams from 2 different groups qualify for the quarters. Group A has Afghanistan, Japan, and Nepal, while Group B has Hong Kong China, Malaysia, and Oman.
This means that India’s men will skip the preliminary round stage, which will put them in the tournament right away in knockout conditions. India’s opponents in the quarter-finals will be decided in the preliminary round, which means that we will only know who they are when that round ends. It also gives an intriguing drawing of the tournament. India and Pakistan find themselves in separate halves of the men’s bracket; this means that the two traditional rivals do not meet until the final if both teams win.
Women’s competition has a completely different format. There will be eight participants in total and no preliminary round stage before the quarter-finals. This means that India’s first game will be against hosts Japan, and this game will take place as part of the women’s competition from September 17 to 22. Other games in the quarter-finals will be between Bangladesh and China, Sri Lanka and Malaysia, and Pakistan and Thailand. If India wins, they will face the winner of Bangladesh vs China in the semi-finals.
For anyone watching the tournament on the 1xBet online platform, this information is important. It is easier to say that India qualify for both tournaments directly, but in reality the two formats operate in different ways. For the men’s tournament, the Indian team has received seeding in the knockout phase without taking part in any preliminaries. As for the women’s tournament, all teams compete in the quarter-finals since there is no preliminary round in the eight-team women’s format. The tournament begins with the quarter-finals for the participating eight teams. Hence, neither Indian team has to play at group stage, but for a different reason.
India’s position also highlights the success that India had in cricket at the Asian Games. At the Asian Games in Hangzhou in 2023, cricket returned to the event list, and India won gold in both the men’s and women’s T20 competitions. The men’s gold medal match between India and Afghanistan had to be decided through seeding because rain had washed out the match, while India defeated Sri Lanka by 19 runs in the women’s game.
Another reason why the Aichi-Nagoya tournament stands out is the fact that it will offer yet another international venue for Asian teams, taking into account the upcoming reintroduction of cricket back into the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028. The matches are going to take place at the Korogi Athletic Park in Aichi Prefecture; the women’s event is set to precede the men’s competition. As far as the Indian national team is concerned, the immediate goal is quite clear: to defend the Asian Games gold medal in both events by starting with the quarter-final matches.
Thus, the Indian women’s cricket team already has an idea of who their first opponent will be: host nation Japan, whereas for the Indian men’s squad the quarter-final opponent will be determined only after the preliminaries. Fans planning to follow fixtures, results and available markets through the 1xBet app should pay particular attention to the separate schedules: women’s cricket event runs from September 17–22, while the men’s tournament follows from September 24–October 1.
