Asian Games 2026: Defending champions India face hosts Japan in women's cricket quarter-final

The match in Nisshin

India, the defending Asian Games champions, met hosts Japan in the fourth and final quarter-final of the women's cricket tournament at the 2026 Asian Games. The match was played at Korogi Athletic Park in Nisshin City on Friday, September 18. India are captained by Harmanpreet Kaur, while Japan are led by Mai Yanagida.

According to a Times of India live blog of the match, Japan batted first and had reached 30 runs for the loss of two wickets after 10 overs, the halfway point of their innings. Scoring slowed noticeably after the Powerplay, with only 6 runs coming in the following five overs as India's spin bowlers tightened their grip. At a later point in the innings, after 12.2 overs, Japan had progressed to 36 for 3, with batter Erika Oda dismissed after holing out to fielder Shreyanka Patil off the bowling of Deepti Sharma. It should be noted the available reports capture only snapshots of the live action, and the sources do not state a final score or result.

Context and other results

India won gold on their Asian Games debut in Hangzhou in 2022, and head coach Amol Muzumdar said the tournament serves as a rehearsal for the team ahead of cricket's return to the Olympics at Los Angeles in 2028, after a 128-year absence. Cricket previously featured at the Olympics only once, at Paris in 1900, when Great Britain and France were the sole competing teams. Captain Harmanpreet Kaur echoed her coach, saying the squad would approach the tournament with the same mindset that delivered gold in Hangzhou.

Elsewhere in the quarter-finals, China's women's team was eliminated without a ball being bowled after their match against Bangladesh was called off due to a waterlogged outfield; Bangladesh advanced on the basis of their higher ranking and will face the winner of the India-Japan quarter-final in the semi-finals. Pakistan also reached the semis, beating Thailand by three wickets in a low-scoring contest.

It is worth noting the match took place a day before the Asian Games' official opening ceremony, scheduled for Saturday in Nagoya — not a contradiction, as certain sports, including cricket, began competition ahead of the formal opening.