The ACC finally published the Asia Cup schedule, and India get Pakistan on 5 September
Three weeks out, the Asian Cricket Council has released the Women’s T20 Asia Cup fixtures. Every match is in Dubai, every match is at 8pm IST, and India meet Pakistan on a Saturday night.
Aug 7, 2026
Three weeks and a day before the first ball, the Asian Cricket Council put out a fixture list. The Women’s T20 Asia Cup runs from 28 August to 13 September, every match at the Dubai International Stadium, every match under lights, every match starting at 8pm IST. India play Pakistan on Saturday 5 September.
That is the sentence most people were waiting for, and it took the ACC long enough to produce it. As of Tuesday the tournament had not been formally announced at all, which had left eight boards trying to arrange visas and flights for a competition that officially did not exist. The BCCI had already published India’s 15-player squad on Sunday 2 August and then quietly pulled the post down, because a board cannot name a squad for something its governing body has not confirmed.
India’s three group games
India are in Group A with Pakistan, Thailand and Hong Kong (China). Their three group games run across a week:
Sunday 30 August against Thailand. Thursday 3 September against Hong Kong. Saturday 5 September against Pakistan. All three at 8pm IST in Dubai.
Group B is Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the UAE and Indonesia. Fifteen matches in all, with the semi-finals on Thursday 10 and Friday 11 September and the final on Sunday 13 September. Thailand and Hong Kong open the tournament on Friday 28 August, which is the sort of fixture that gets a competition started without anybody having to worry about it.
India are not the holders, and that still reads oddly
Sri Lanka are. They beat India by eight wickets in the 2024 final at Dambulla, chasing 166 with eight balls to spare, and it was the first Asia Cup title Sri Lanka had ever won in the women’s game. Chamari Athapaththu and Harshitha Samarawickrama took the game away from India that night, and Samarawickrama finished on 69 not out.
India have won three of the five editions played since the tournament went to the T20 format: 2012, 2016 and 2022. Bangladesh took the 2018 title in Malaysia. A fourth for India would restore the natural order that most people assume already exists, and it is worth remembering they have not lifted this trophy in four years.
They also arrive without a World Cup. Australia beat England by seven wickets at Lord’s on 5 July to win the 2026 T20 World Cup, their seventh in the format, and India were not in that final. Harmanpreet Kaur’s side have spent a good while now being the team everyone expects to win things in this part of the world without actually winning them.
The squad, now that it can officially exist
Harmanpreet keeps the captaincy and Smriti Mandhana is her deputy, the same leadership pair the BCCI put up and took down at the start of the month. Mandhana has had a heavy year of cricket, including 83 and 70 in the first women’s Test played at Lord’s in July, and Dubai in early September will be a different proposition again.
What the schedule does not fix is the runway. Teams have been told to arrive on 27 August, which gives the smaller boards in this field a little over a fortnight to get visas approved and charter flights booked for a tournament whose venue was only formally confirmed this week. India and Pakistan will manage. Indonesia, playing their first Asia Cup, have a harder logistical week ahead than anybody.
One venue, one start time, 15 matches
Playing all 15 matches at one ground under lights is a broadcaster’s schedule rather than a cricketer’s, and in Dubai in late August it is also a heat-management decision. It does mean an Indian audience gets every game at a civilised hour, and it means the pitch at Dubai International will have been used a dozen times by the time somebody lifts the trophy on 13 September. Spinners tend to enjoy that. India, who have a lot of them, will not mind.