Left-arm spinner Shahbaz Ahmed on Wednesday said that the Indian cricket team will be aiming look to bag the gold medal in the upcoming Asian Games.
This will be for the second time when the men’s cricket team will play in a multi-sport event. The Indian men’s cricket team had featured at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur in a 50-over format, however, the games were not accorded international status and were recorded as List A games.
“Our tournament starts for us from the quarter-final stages. All the teams would be good and well prepared. We hope for the gold medal for the country,” Shahbaz Ahmed told a YouTube channel ‘Cricket Basu’.
Last week, the BCCI had announced a 15-member Indian squad and five standby players for the upcoming Asian Games 2023, scheduled in Hangzhou, the People’s Republic of China, from September 23 to October 8.
The men’s cricket event at the Asian Games 2023 will be played in the T20 format and will be held from September 28 to October 8. All the matches will be played at the Zhejiang University of Technology Pingfeng Cricket Field.
Men’s Team: Ruturaj Gaikwad (captain), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rahul Tripathi, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wicket-keeper), Washington Sundar, Shahbaz Ahmed, Ravi Bishnoi, Avesh Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Mukesh Kumar, Shivam Mavi, Shivam Dube, Prabhsimran Singh (wicket-keeper)
Standby players: Yash Thakur, Sai Kishore, Venkatesh Iyer, Deepak Hooda, Sai Sudarsan