Bangladesh are into the Asian Games semi-finals without a ball being bowled, and Pakistan got there in 10.4 overs
China went out of the Asian Games without a toss being made, and Pakistan needed all but two balls of a rain-shortened chase to beat Thailand. India’s quarter-final is on Friday morning.
Sep 17, 2026
The Asian Games women’s cricket tournament opened on Thursday with two quarter-finals on the schedule and 21.4 overs of cricket actually played. Bangladesh are in the semi-finals without having faced a ball. Pakistan joined them the harder way, chasing 92 in an 11-over game against Thailand and getting there with two deliveries left.
China’s tournament ended without a toss
The first quarter-final never started. A wet outfield at Korogi Sports Park in Nisshin, on the edge of Nagoya, delayed the Bangladesh-China match, and it was eventually abandoned without the captains reaching the middle. There was no toss. Bangladesh advanced on the strength of their higher seeding, and China were out of a tournament they had not played a minute of.
It is a blunt way to settle a knockout match, and it is the format the women’s competition runs on here. There are no group games at all. Eight teams go straight into four quarter-finals, and a washout hands the tie to whoever was seeded higher.
Bangladesh now wait for the second semi-final on 20 September, where they will meet the winner of India against Japan.
Koncharoenkai made 49 of Thailand’s 91
The second quarter-final got on, late and shortened. Rain cut it to 11 overs a side, Pakistan captain Fatima Sana won the toss and bowled, and Thailand built their innings around Nannapat Koncharoenkai. Their wicketkeeper hit seven fours in a 38-ball 49 and was still there when Thailand’s third wicket fell at 82, before Sana trapped her lbw in the 11th over.
Thailand finished on 91 for 4. Phannita Maya’s contribution is the one worth pausing on: she made 15 from 16 balls, and rather than let a slow innings clog the middle of a shortened game, Thailand retired her out at the end of the ninth over. Naruemol Chaiwai came in and hit a four and a six in three balls for 10.
Sana took 2 for 22 from her three overs. Nashra Sandhu had the other wicket. Pakistan gave away seven extras, five of them wides, which in a game this short is the better part of two boundaries.
Pakistan lost four wickets for 11 runs and still won
The chase started at a canter. Gull Feroza and Shawaal Zulfiqar put on 36 inside four overs, Zulfiqar hitting three fours and a six in a 14-ball 25, and 92 looked comfortably within reach.
Then Thailand took four wickets in 13 balls for 11 runs. Onnicha Kamchomphu had Zulfiqar caught and bowled, Suleeporn Laomi removed Ayesha Zafar for 1, Kamchomphu had Feroza stumped, and Aliya Riaz went three balls later. Pakistan were 47 for 4 in the sixth over of an 11-over chase.
Sana settled it, more or less, with 21 from 13 before she was caught in the ninth over. Tuba Hassan’s 13 from seven balls took Pakistan to 88 for 7 at the end of the tenth, which left four runs to get from the last over with three wickets in hand. Eman Naseer and Umm-e-Hani knocked them off in four balls.
Thailand’s bowling deserves better than the scoreline suggests. They conceded no extras at all across the chase, and Laomi’s two overs went for three runs. Kamchomphu’s 3 for 37 was the return of a bowler attacking a target she had no margin to defend.
India play Japan on Friday morning
India, the defending champions, start on Friday. Their quarter-final against hosts Japan begins at 10.30am IST, following Malaysia against Sri Lanka earlier the same morning. Win it and they face Bangladesh in the semi-final on Sunday; Pakistan take on the Malaysia-Sri Lanka winner in the other half.
Both semi-finals are on 20 September, with the bronze play-off and the gold medal match on 22 September. Every game is at Korogi Sports Park, which is also where the men’s tournament begins on 24 September where India have a bye straight into the quarter-finals.
The weather, on this evidence, is going to have a say in who wins gold. One quarter-final has already been settled by a seeding table, and the other was squeezed into fewer than 22 overs. India will want their first knockout game to last longer than that.