India will be looking to back up their performances in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 Commonwealth Games by bagging their best-ever medals tally at the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou to be held from September 23 to October 8 2023. But one sport in which India will not be participating is cricket, with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) confirming the same on Friday, April 21.
The BCCI told India’s chef de mission for the Asian Games Bhupender Bajwa that prior commitments were the main reason that they will not be sending either the men’s or women’s teams for the continental multi-sport event. “We have entries in all sports except one – cricket (team) isn’t going. They said they are preoccupied. We sent 3-4 emails to them but when we had to send entries to the organisers, they said they won’t go,” Bajwa said, as quoted by The Indian Express.
The same was confirmed to The Indian Express by a BCCI source as well but they also added that the email requesting confirmation of their participation came from the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) only a day before the deadline. “We received the mail from IOA just one day before the deadline. At the same time, the BCCI already has finalised the FTP for women’s cricket. During the Asian Games, our team won’t be available as they will be playing in a tournament,” the official said.
The FTP schedule states that the Indian women's team will play South Africa and New Zealand in limited-overs series during this period. Meanwhile, the men’s team will compete in the ODI World Cup on home soil in October-November.
The option of playing two teams was always on the cards, just like they did in 2021 when a Shikhar Dhawan-led side played in Sri Lanka while a Virat Kohli-led team was in England for a Test series.
Cricket has been a part of two editions of the Asian Games — in 2010 and 2014 — but India chose not to send teams to both those meets. After being left out of the 2018 Asiad in Jakarta, cricket has returned to the official list of sports for the Hangzhou Games, originally to be held in 2023 but were postponed due to China’s zero-Covid policy.
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