MUMBAI: India have announced VVS Laxman as head coach for the Asian Games 2026, scheduled to run from 17 September in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan.
Laxman is also serving as the head of BCCI’s Center of Excellence and will be joined by Sunil Joshi, Hrishikesh Kanitkar, and the new fielding coach, Subhadeep Ghosh.
Meanwhile, the women’s team will be overseen by regular coaching staff — Amol Muzumdar, bowling coach Aavishkar Salvi, and fielding coach Munish Bali.
The need for a separate coaching staff for the Asian Games 2026 is due to India’s ODI series against the West Indies, scheduled from 27 September to 3 October.
Laxman was part of India’s coaching setup at the 2024 Asian Games, which won a gold medal. He was also the head coach for India’s T20I tour of Zimbabwe. He has taken charge of several India assignments since 2022 while the senior coaching staff has been engaged elsewhere.
India have announced a full-strength squad for the Asian Games led by Shreyas Iyer. India women will be captained by Harmanpreet Kaur, with Smriti Mandhana as vice-captain.
Follow us on our Official WhatsApp channel
India have been assigned to Quarter-final 2 scheduled for September 28. Their respective opponents will be determined by the group-stage results.
The same draw format has been adopted for the women’s tournament, meaning the arch-rivals can only meet in the final or third-place match.
India are the top seeds in the women’s event, while Pakistan have been placed fourth behind Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
India will face Japan in their quarter-final and, if they progress, could meet Bangladesh or Hong Kong, China in the semi-final.
The men’s competition will feature 10 teams, with India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka receiving direct entry into the quarter-finals. Afghanistan, Nepal, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Malaysia and Oman will compete for the remaining knockout spots.
The women’s final is scheduled for September 22 before the men’s tournament takes centre stage.
All cricket matches will be played in the T20 format at Paloma Mizuho Stadium in Nagoya.
India Squad for Asian Games 2026
Shreyas Iyer (c), Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, Ishan Kishan, Shivam Dube, Tilak Varma, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Varun Chakaravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Jasprit Bumrah, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi
