Gambhir not to coach Shreyas Iyer-led T20I side in Asian Games 2026, Laxman to take over again

India head coach Gautam Gambhir will not travel with the Shreyas Iyer-led T20I side for the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games 2026 in Japan later this month. As per the list of coaches published by the Sports Ministry, Director of Cricket at the Centre of Excellence, VVS Laxman will travel with the men's side with his coaching staff Sunil Joshi, Hrishikesh Kanitkar and Subhadeep Ghosh.

On the UK tour when Gambhir was head coach, India couldn’t win a single T20I against Ireland and England. For the Zimbabwe tour, Laxman took over as several players were rested ahead of the tour of Sri Lanka. India won all the three T20Is against the Sikandar Raza-led side. 

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India have earned a direct qualification to the Asian Games 2026 quarterfinals. Their campaign begins on September 28 against the second-placed side from Group A.

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Meanwhile, Shubman Gill-led India will take on West Indies in a three-ODI series starting September 27. Gambhir will be the ODI side but without his newly-appointed fielding coach Ghosh. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is yet to announce who will be the fielding coach for the West Indies ODI series at home. 

India’s squad for the 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.

Will India make changes to Asian Games 2026 squad?

For the upcoming three-T20I series against Afghanistan, four players named in the squad are yet to be declared fully fit. Jasprit Bumrah, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Harshit Rana and Washington Sundar’s participation in the series is subject to fitness. If any of the four players don’t convince officials at the Centre of Excellence (CoE) of their fitness, the selection committee is set to make changes. Recently, a report claimed that the CoE, selectors and team management will take a cautious route before declaring any player fit and give him a Return to play clearance.