03 October,2026 10:11 AM IST | Mumbai | mid-day online correspondent
Cricket fans perform special prayers for Team India in Varanasi (Pic: X/@ANI)
Team India is set to lock horns with arch-rivals Pakistan in the Asian Games 2026 final. The match is scheduled to be played on October 3 at the Aichi Prefectural Korogi Sports Park in Nisshin.
Ahead of the match, cricket fans in Varanasi have performed special prayers for Team India's victory.
Under the captaincy of Shreyas Iyer, the "Men in Blue" have stormed in the final with a dominant win by a huge margin of 124 runs against Sri Lanka in the semi-final. Earlier, their quarter-final against Afghanistan was abandoned due to persistent rain.
Team India will enter the final as defending champions in the continental event, as the side previously won the gold medal in the Hangzhou 2023 Games. In the previous edition in 2023, Team India was awarded the gold medal as the final match against Afghanistan was washed out. The "Men in Blue" were the higher-ranked side, taking the top spot.
Pakistan, meanwhile, will be aiming to claim the first-ever men's Asian Games cricket gold, with their women's team having previously won the top prize in the competition.
Aichi-Nagoya 2026, however, has different provisions. If rain or other conditions prevent the gold medal match from being completed, a Super Over will be used to determine the winner. If the Super Over itself cannot be completed, both teams will share the gold medal.
India hold the upper hand in the head-to-head record against Pakistan, having won 14 of their 17 T20 encounters, with three defeats. India also enter the final on a six-match winning streak against their arch-rivals, who last defeated them in a T20 clash in 2022.
India: Shreyas Iyer (c), Tilak Varma (vc), Abhishek Sharma, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Shivam Dube, Ishan Kishan, Vipraj Nigam, Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Sanju Samson, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Washington Sundar, Yash Thakur.
Pakistan: Sahibzada Farhan (c), Abdul Samad (vc), Abrar Ahmed, Ahmed Daniyal, Akif Javed, Ali Raza, Arafat Minhas, Haider Ali, Hasan Nawaz, Maaz Sadaqat, Mohammad Wasim, Saad Masood, Saim Ayub, Sufyan Moqim, Usman Khan.
(With ANI Inputs)
