The men's cricket competition at the Asian Games 2026 began on Thursday (24 September). The preliminary round matches have just started. On the first day, teams from Japan, Afghanistan, Hong Kong and Malaysia took the field. In the Group A match, Afghanistan started its campaign by defeating Japan by 48 runs while Malaysia defeated Hong Kong.
Japan again showed excellence in bowling
The Japanese team had shown excellent bowling against India. Due to rain in Sano, he restricted Team India to just 32 runs in the match played in 5-5 overs. The Japanese team also showed excellence in bowling in the Asian Games and allowed Afghanistan to score only 129 runs in the stipulated 20 overs. Although his batsmen could not do anything special.
Afghanistan's Arab Gul, Nangelia Khan and Abdullah Ahmadzai bowled lethally and bowled out the Japanese team for 81 runs in 19.3 overs. Arab Gul spent only 8 runs in 4 overs and took 4 wickets. He also bowled 2 maiden overs. Nangelia took 3 wickets for 19 runs in 3.3 overs, while Ahmedzai took 2 wickets for 13 runs in 3 overs. The Afghan team has moved towards the quarter-finals by registering a win by 48 runs. Now he has to face Nepal. Japan team will also face Nepal in its next match.
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Malaysia defeats Hong Kong
In the Group B match, Hong Kong team, which won the toss and came to bat first, was restricted to 81/9 by Malaysia. For Hong Kong, Shiv Mathur scored the maximum 29 runs but for this he faced 39 balls. For Malaysia, Pawandeep Singh and Muhammad Aamir took 3 wickets each.
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After this, Virandeep Singh and Muhammad Shahadat played unbeaten innings of 32 and 36 runs respectively, helping the Malaysian team win by 8 wickets in just 12 overs. After this big win, it is certain that Malaysia will be in the top-2 in Group-B, due to which it will be seen playing the quarter-finals.