The BCCI announced India’s 15-member squad for the upcoming 19th edition of the Asian Games 2023. This will take place in Hangzhou, China between September 28 and October 8. With the ODI World Cup coming up, the Indian board decided to send their second-string team to the event in China.
They picked mostly domestic performers who have also done well in the Indian Premier League. Ruturaj Gaikwad will lead the Indian team, while it also saw Rinku Singh getting his maiden call-up. Notably, there was a lot of buzz when Rinku was not picked for the West Indies T20Is.
However, there is no senior or regular player from the Indian team, as the BCCI has decided to let them prepare for the World Cup event. This will only be the third occasion when cricket will be played in the Asian Games. The previous two times, it happened in 2010 (Guangzhou) and 2014 (Incheon).
Bangladesh won the first edition in 2010, while Sri Lanka is the current champion. Afghanistan ended as runners-up in both editions. India didn’t send a team to either of the two editions. However, now they have decided to send their second-string team, which will compete in the competition.
There will be a total of 18 teams taking part in the competition, and all the matches will take place at Pingfeng Cricket Field at Zhejiang University of Technology. However, India will not play the Super 16 matches as they will immediately play the quarterfinals.
This is because, as per the T20I rankings as of June 1, 2023, India is among the top-ranked teams, which is why they will directly play among the last eight teams of the competition. It will only be the second time that India will play in a multi-sport tournament after the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, which was played in a 50-over format. Notably, those matches were listed as List-A matches and didn’t get the status of international matches.
India’s squad for Asian Games 2023: Ruturaj Gaikwad (captain), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Washington Sundar, Rahul Tripathi, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Arshdeep Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wicketkeeper), Shahbaz Ahmed, Ravi Bishnoi, Avesh Khan, Mukesh Kumar, Shivam Mavi, Shivam Dube, Prabhsimran Singh (wicketkeeper)
