Pakistan will take on Bangladesh in the first semi-final of the Asian Games 2026 men’s cricket competition in Japan on Thursday, October 1, with both sides marching into the last four without bowling a single ball in their quarter-finals after a washout-hit week.
Pakistan’s quarter-final against Hong Kong was abandoned without a delivery bowled on September 28 due to persistent rain, and the team advanced on higher seeding under the tournament’s tie-break rules — as PakDaily reported at the time. Bangladesh reached the same stage a day later, on September 29, after their own quarter-final against Malaysia was washed out at the same rain-hit venue near Nagoya, according to Crictracker and The Express Tribune.
The other semi-final pits India against Sri Lanka, also on October 1, after India’s quarter-final against Afghanistan and Sri Lanka’s against Nepal were both abandoned by rain as well — meaning all four men’s quarter-finals were called off without a result being played. Dawn described India and Pakistan as being “on a collision course” for a possible final, should both sides win their semi-finals.
| Semi-Final | Teams | Date & Time (PKT) | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Semi-Final | Pakistan vs Bangladesh | Thursday, October 1 – 5:00am | Kōrogi Sports Park, Nisshin (near Nagoya), Japan |
| 2nd Semi-Final | India vs Sri Lanka | Thursday, October 1 | Kōrogi Sports Park, Nisshin (near Nagoya), Japan |
The medal matches — the bronze-medal playoff and the final — are scheduled for October 3.
“Cricket, like baseball, you can’t play it in the rain. A year of my life on this, and it rains,” said Jarrad Shearer, the Asian Games’ sports director, after a week of washouts, as quoted by Geo News and The Express Tribune.
Bangladesh will go into the semi-final without one of their frontline batters: Najmul Hossain Shanto has been ruled out of the tournament with a fever and is returning home, according to the ICC and Bangladeshi outlet TBS News.
History offers Pakistan a reason for caution. At the 2023 Asian Games, Bangladesh beat Pakistan in the bronze-medal playoff — the two sides’ last meeting at the event, per Crictracker. Pakistan’s squad for this year’s tournament reportedly includes captain Sahibzada Farhan, along with Hasan Nawaz, Usman Khan, Muaz Sadaqat, Saim Ayub, Arafat Minhas, Sufiyan Muqeem and Abrar Ahmed, according to The Nation — though PakDaily could not independently confirm the full squad list against a second source.
Our Opinion
A tournament reduced to coin-toss cricket by a fortnight of rain is not much of an advertisement for taking the game to new venues like Japan, and it is hard not to feel for four teams — Pakistan included — that were denied any real chance to play their way into the semi-finals; still, Pakistan now has a genuine opportunity against a Bangladesh side missing a key batter, and if the tournament does end up delivering an India-Pakistan final, this week’s format problems will likely be forgotten fast — though the PCB and other boards would do well to push for better contingency scheduling before the next edition.
