Cricket retained for Asian Games 2026

Cricket has been retained for Asian Games 2026 while Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) is set to make its debut at the continental meet, the Olympic Council of Asia confirmed on Tuesday.

The Asian Games 2026 are scheduled to be held in the Aichi and Nagoya prefectures of Japan from September 19 to October 4.

"The latest development in the compilation of the sports programme came at the 41st meeting of the AINAGOC Board of Directors at Nagoya City Hall on Monday, April 28, when cricket and Mixed Martial Arts were both formally approved," the OCA said.

This will be the fourth time that cricket will be making an appearance in the Asian Games programme. Cricket matches at the 2026 Asian Games will be held in Aichi but the exact venues have not been decided yet.

The sport, despite its popularity in Asia, has only featured in three of the 19 previous editions of the continental showpiece so far.

Cricket made its debut as a medal event in the Asian Games at Guangzhou 2010 and returned at Incheon 2014, although the matches were not accorded international status.

However, once the sport returned to the Asian Games 2023 in Hangzhou after being dropped from the programme at Jakarta 2018, all matches were granted international status by the International Cricket Council (ICC) - the global governing body for cricket.

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