Organisers confirm India and Pakistan will share gold if the Asian Games final is washed out

India and Pakistan will both be given gold medals if Saturday's Asian Games final in Nisshin cannot be played, organisers have confirmed

The men's cricket gold-medal match at Korogi Sports Park is scheduled for Saturday 3 October and carries no reserve day. The Aichi-Nagoya organising committee has confirmed that if the match is lost to the weather, both finalists are awarded gold, rather than the medal going to the higher-seeded side.

That matters at a tournament the rain has already reshaped. Six matches have been washed out in Nisshin, among them all four men's quarter-finals, which were abandoned without a toss and settled on seeding alone.

India reached the final by beating Sri Lanka by 124 runs on Thursday. Pakistan got there by beating Bangladesh by six wickets in a semi-final cut to 13 overs a side.

What the rule says

A match at these Games counts as a contest only once both sides have faced a minimum of five overs. Short of that, it is recorded as a no result.

In the final, a no result no longer produces a winner on paper. Both teams take gold, and no silver medal is presented.

Once five overs have been bowled in the second innings, the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method applies as normal and a single winner can still be found on a shortened game.

No stage of the men's competition has a reserve day, so Saturday is the only date the final can be played on.

A change from Hangzhou

At the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, the men's final between India and Afghanistan was abandoned with Afghanistan 112 for 5 from 18.2 overs and India yet to bat.

India were awarded gold on their higher ranking and Afghanistan were given silver, a medal decided by seeding rather than by play.

The 2026 regulation removes that mechanism from the final. Seeding still breaks a tie in the earlier rounds, but it no longer settles the title.

Rain has run the tournament

The weather began interfering in the group stage, where Nepal's meeting with hosts Japan ended as a no result and Malaysia's game against Oman was abandoned without a toss.

It then wiped out the entire quarter-final round on 28 September. India went through against Afghanistan, Pakistan against Hong Kong, Sri Lanka against Nepal and Bangladesh against Malaysia, each on their higher seeding.

India consequently arrived at the semi-finals without having bowled a ball in the competition.

How the finalists got here

Given a full 20 overs at last, India posted 169 for 7, built on Ishan Kishan's unbeaten 80 from 46 balls after Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson had both gone for seven. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi made 38 either side of that.

Jasprit Bumrah struck twice in the opening over of the reply and Axar Patel took two more inside the fourth, and Sri Lanka were bowled out for 45.

Pakistan's semi-final was the one trimmed by rain. Bangladesh made 111 for 7 from their 13 overs, Towhid Hridoy top-scoring with 42 from 25 balls, and Pakistan answered with 112 for 4 in 11.3 overs.

Abdul Samad finished it with 30 not out from 15 balls, adding 59 with Hasan Nawaz. Shreyas Iyer captains India in the final, Sahibzada Farhan leads Pakistan.

Bronze carries the same safeguard

The same wording covers the third-place play-off between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the two beaten semi-finalists, which is played earlier on Saturday at the same ground.

If that match cannot be completed, both sides are given bronze on the same basis, so a wet Saturday in Aichi could send all four semi-finalists home with the medal they came for.

The final starts at 10:00 IST on Saturday at Korogi Sports Park, with the third-place play-off earlier the same morning.

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