New Delhi, Sep 8 (IANS) The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will send a full-fledged Indian cricket team to the upcoming Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, with president Mithun Manhas saying the side will be targeting the gold medal.
“We will send a full-fledged cricket team to the Asian Games. We are going there with the aim of winning the gold medal for India. It will be a great event, and hopefully, I will be there as well to cheer for our team,” Manhas told IANS.
India will enter the Asian Games as the defending champions in both men’s and women’s cricket after winning gold at the 2022 Hangzhou Games. The Asian Games cricket schedule has also been announced, with the Indian women’s team to play the quarter-finals directly on September 18. Semi-finals are on September 20; medal matches are on September 22.
In the men’s event, India will get direct entry in the quarter-final stage on September 28. The semi-finals are set for October 1, with the medal matches scheduled for October 3 in Aichi-Nagoya.
VVS Laxman, the Head of the Centre of Excellence (CoE), will be the head coach of the Indian men’s team for the continental event. Gautam Gambhir, the regular head coach, is taking a break before India’s upcoming white-ball series against the West Indies, which begins on September 27, and Laxman will be in charge of the men’s team. Laxman will be assisted by former India spinner Sunil Joshi, Hrishikesh Kanitkar and Subhadeep Ghosh. Meanwhile, Amol Muzumdar will be in charge of the women’s team.
Laxman recently took charge of India’s T20I series against Zimbabwe in July after Gambhir was rested after the white-ball series against England. Ruturaj Gaikwad led a largely second-string men’s side to the title, while Harmanpreet Kaur guided the Indian women’s team to gold.
Squads:
India women’s team: Harmanpreet Kaur (captain), Smriti Mandhana (vice-captain), Shafali Verma, Deepti Sharma, Richa Ghosh (wicket-keeper), G. Kamalini (wicket-keeper), Bharti Fulmali, Sree Charani, Renuka Thakur, Kranti Gaud, Arundhati Reddy, Shreyanka Patil (subject to fitness), Radha Yadav, Nandni Sharma.
India men’s team: Shreyas Iyer (captain), Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (wicket-keeper), Ishan Kishan (wicket-keeper), Shivam Dube, Tilak Varma (vice-captain), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Varun Chakaravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Jasprit Bumrah, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi.
–IANS
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