VVS Laxman To Coach Team India At Asian Games 2026 As Shreyas Iyer And Harmanpreet Kaur Lead Gold Medal Defence

New Delhi: Director of Cricket at the BCCI's Centre of Excellence (CoE), VVS Laxman, is going to take charge of the Indian men's team at the upcoming Asian Games 2026 to be held n Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, later this month.

Laxman will be assisted by Sunil Joshi, Hrishikesh Kanitkar and Subhadeep Ghosh, as per the list of coaches released by the Sports Ministry.

Laxman had also coached the Indian men’s team at the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, where India won the gold medal.

Regular head coach Gautam Gambhir will be with the senior team for the home ODI series against the West Indies, with the first ODI scheduled to be played on September 27.

The cricket competition at the Asian Games will begin on September 24, with India set to play its opening match four days later.

Amol Muzumdar will continue as the head coach of the Indian women’s team. Muzumdar will be assisted by bowling coach Aavishkar Salvi and fielding coach Munish Bali.

The Indian women’s team will enter the competition at the quarterfinal stage and face Japan, while the men’s team will take on the second-placed side from Group A, comprising Afghanistan, Japan and Nepal.

In cricket, India will defend its men's T20 Asian Games title under captain Shreyas Iyer, with teenage batting sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi also part of the squad. The Indian women's team will also defend its title and will be led by Harmanpreet Kaur.

Indian cricket teams at Asian Games 2026:

Indian men's cricket team: Shreyas Iyer (captain), Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, Ishan Kishan, Shivam Dube, Tilak Varma, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Varun Chakravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Jasprit Bumrah, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi.

Indian women's cricket team: Harmanpreet Kaur (captain), Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Pratika Rawal, Deepti Sharma, Richa Ghosh, Gunalan Kamalini, Bharti Fulmali, Sree Charani, Renuka Thakur, Kranti Gaud, Arundhati Reddy, Shreyanka Patil, Radha Yadav, Nandani Sharma.