India, Pakistan among cricket boards unhappy with Asian Games 2026 facilities
Full-member cricket boards, including India and Pakistan, have asked for their representatives to travel to Japan immediately to inspect the facilities being provided to cricketers at the 2026 Asian Games, the boards said on August 28, 2026 amid concerns over accommodation standards.
The matter was discussed during an ACC meeting where delegates raised worries specifically about the size of rooms allocated to players. The rooms were described as too small for two cricketers to comfortably share alongside their kitbags and luggage. “It is a genuine problem, since the rooms are very tiny. If one player opens a kitbag, there won’t be much space left to stand. We are trying to figure out a solution to this problem,” a source familiar with the matter said.
The source added that most boards at the meeting voiced little disagreement over general arrangements, but the size of the accommodation emerged as a genuine concern. One board member reportedly warned that if the facilities were not up to the required standard, the board could consider sending a B team instead of its full-strength squad.
Amid the discussion a representative from a full-member board proposed that representatives of the full-member nations should travel to Japan immediately to assess the facilities firsthand. The suggestion was that those representatives would report back to their respective boards. A final decision would then be taken on whether the facilities meet the required standards for the participating cricketers.
India were the gold medallists at the last edition of the Asian Games, their higher ranking awarded them the medal after the final was washed out. The BCCI has named squads for both the men’s and women’s events and described the selections as strong.
Men’s squad: Shreyas Iyer (captain), Sanju Samson (wicketkeeper), Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan (wicketkeeper), Shivam Dube, Tilak Varma (vice-captain), Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Varun Chakravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Jasprit Bumrah.
Women’s squad: Harmanpreet Kaur (Captain), Smriti Mandhana (Vice-Captain), Shafali Verma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Richa Ghosh (WK), G. Kamalini (WK), Bharti Fulmali, Sree Charani, Renuka Thakur, Kranti Gaud, Arundhati Reddy, Shreyanka Patil*, Radha Yadav, Nandni Sharma.
Boards will await feedback from the visiting representatives before taking a final call on whether the accommodation and other facilities meet participants’ requirements; if facilities are judged inadequate, some boards could consider sending B teams rather than full-strength squads.