BCCI to send second string men's and main women's squad for Asian Games 2023

Asian Games is scheduled to begin on 23rd September in Hangzhou, China.

The BCCI have decided to send their second-string squad for the upcoming Asian Games in Hangzhou. Earlier, the BCCI were not sure about sending their team for the big Asian sports event citing prior obligations and the big World Cup even in October-November. Asian games will begin from 23rd September to 8th October. 

While the World Cup event is also scheduled to start in the first week of October, the BCCI will be sending out a list to the Indian Olympic Association of the official list of players by 30th June. T20 Cricket will be played in the Asiad for the third time. Before, in 2010 and 2014 Cricket was part of the Asiad, however, India did not participate in the tournament. 

Asian games were earlier scheduled to be played in 2022 but the Covid outbreak in China last year postponed the biggest Asian sports event for one more year in September-October in 2023. This will be the third instance when the Indian team will play a parallel tournament and will field two different teams. 

Earlier in 1998, India participated in Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur and in the Sahara Cup in UAE. The other instance came in 2021 when one team was playing a test series in England and the other played in Sri Lanka for a limited-overs series under Shikhar Dhawan. 

India’s schedule is occupied with two big events in three months starting from September to November. They will be taking part in the Asia Cup in the first half of September, after that India will be taking part in the warm-up game for the World Cup. Then in the first week of the ultimate cricket prize, the ICC Cricket World Cup will begin. World Cup will go on till the last week of November.