India defended the Asian Games men’s cricket title on 3 October, beating Pakistan by 19 runs in the final in Japan after scoring 211 for 6, with Hasan Nawaz’s 96 not enough for Pakistan.
India beat Pakistan by 19 runs in the final of the men’s cricket tournament at the 2026 Asian Games to retain the gold medal they won in Hangzhou, according to match reports from Al Jazeera, Olympics.com and Yahoo Sports. The final was played on 3 October 2026 at the Kōrogi Sports Park in Nisshin, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, and the cricket tournament ran from 24 September to 3 October.
India batted first and scored 211 for 6 in their 20 overs, and Pakistan finished on 192 for 6, according to the search summary of the reports. Abhishek Sharma made a quick 61 to set the tone, and Tilak Varma finished the innings with a half-century. The reports do not give the full scorecard, so the bowlers’ figures and the strike rates are not covered here.
Pakistan’s reply was led by Hasan Nawaz, who made 96 and kept them in the game until the last over, according to the same reports. He was not able to finish the chase, and the margin of 19 runs was the difference between his innings and a result that would have gone the other way. The sources reviewed do not say how he was out.
The Yahoo Sports headline describes the side as Shreyas Iyer’s men, which suggests that Iyer captained India in the tournament, although the match reports reviewed do not give details of the team or the toss. India’s route to the final included a semi-final win over Sri Lanka by 124 runs, according to ESPN’s listing.
The women’s tournament also went to India. The report says that the women’s team won gold earlier in the Games, and that both Indian teams therefore defended the titles they won at the Hangzhou Games, which completed a sweep of the cricket events. Delima News has published separate reports on India’s other medals at the Games, including boxing.
The Olympics.com headline reports the final as India beating Pakistan to win the title, and the sources reviewed do not give a head-to-head record between the two sides.
The scores above, with 20 overs for each side, show that the final was played in the T20 format. The sources reviewed do not say how the squads were chosen or how they differ from the teams India sends to other series.
The tournament was one of several where India won medals in Japan. Delima News has reported the final medal table, in which China finished first with 169 gold medals and Japan second, and India’s boxing medals including Lovlina Borgohain’s gold. India’s cricketers have since moved on to the home series against West Indies, which is level at 2-2 in the T20 internationals, as Delima News reports in a separate article. The two cricket golds are additional to those totals, since the sources reviewed do not say how many medals India won in all.
Image: The Indian cricket team with a trophy (file photo; a stand-in image, not from the Asian Games final). Photo: lensbug.chandru / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
