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The tournament is headed to Aichi-Nagoya and cricket will be played at the Korogi Sports Park in Nisshin. For context, cricket only made its way back to the Asian Games last year. This time, 10 men's teams and eight women's teams are competing.

The Pakistan Cricket Board was actually the first to flag concerns about the pitch during a recent Asian Cricket Council meeting. The ACC decided to inspect the venue and the accommodations themselves. 'It's a very basic ground,' a source told The Indian Express. 'There's a question mark over the pitch quality. It was only laid recently and hasn't really been tested, except for one tournament in May. Even the dressing rooms aren't really up to standard.' India's cricket board also took their concerns straight to the Indian Olympic Association and the Asian Games Organising Committee.

The Korogi Sports Park is actually a converted baseball stadium. Earlier this year, it hosted part of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup East Asia-Pacific Qualifier after a hybrid pitch was installed in March. The place can hold around 2,000 fans. The ICC described the venue as having a pitch much like you see in Pakistan—plenty of bounce and turn.

Naoki Alex Miyaji, CEO of the Japan Cricket Association and a former player, praised the outfield during the T20 World Cup qualifiers. 'It's special to have Full Member nations coming here to play cricket. We want people in the area to realize how big this is—it's happening right on their doorstep,' he said.

The 2026 Games will once again draw some of cricket's biggest names—Jasprit Bumrah, Shreyas Iyer, and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, among others, are expected to play.

Now, the pitch isn't the only issue. Accommodation is a problem too. Unlike previous Games, there won't be a single Athletes' Village. Cricketers, along with badminton players and footballers, will be staying in hotels. The catch? The hotels are about 20 km from the cricket ground, and reports say the rooms are far too cramped for players with their full kit. 'It's a genuine problem. The rooms are so tiny that if one player opens a kitbag, there's barely space left to stand,' an official admitted. They're still trying to figure out a solution.

On the field, India goes in as the defending champions for both men's and women's cricket. The women's event runs from September 17 to 22; the men's starts September 24 and wraps up October 3. Harmanpreet Kaur leads the Indian women's team and they'll play Japan in the quarter-finals on September 18. Shreyas Iyer captains the men's team, and their first match will be against the second-placed side from Group A, featuring Afghanistan, Japan and Nepal.