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The cricket tournament at the Asian Games 2023 will reportedly have international status from the ICC, the governing body of the sport. The 19th edition of the continental multi-sporting extravaganza is set to happen from September 23 to October 8 in the city of Hangzhou, China.
The matches during the cricket tournament at the Asaid will be contested in the T20 format, the shortest version of the game, at the Zhejiang University of Technology Cricket Field. There will be 32 matches played across men’s and women’s competition, 18 and 14 matches respectively, while the teams will be seeded based on ICC T20I rankings as of June 1, 2023.
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The women’s event, including 14 national teams, will commence from September 19 onwards, before the opening ceremony in Hangzhou, while the final will happen on September 26. On the other hand, the men’s event, including 18 national teams, will commence on September 28, while the final will happen on October 7.
As per the report in the PTI, the cricket matches at the Asian Games 2023 in Hangzhou, China, will be given official T20I status.
Notably, the sport of cricket made its debut as a medal competition at the Asian Games in Guangzhou 2010, where Bangladesh won the gold medal in the men’s competition, while Pakistan did it in the women’s competition. At the Asian Games in Incheon 2014, Sri Lanka earned the gold medal in the men's competition, while Pakistan defended its title successfully in the women’s competition. Moreover, Team India didn’t take part in the cricket tournament during the multi-sporting event in both these editions.
In Guangzhou and Incheon, the T20 matches weren’t given international status. Furthermore, in the previous Asian Games at Jakarta and Palembang in 2018, cricket as a competition wasn’t played altogether.
