Nepal vs Hong Kong

Nepal face Hong Kong at Korogi Athletic Park (5,000 capacity) in Nisshin, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, on September 26, 2026, with first ball at 9:00 AM JST (UTC+9) in the final Group A preliminary match of Cricket at the 2026 Asian Games. The winner advances to the quarterfinals. The loser goes home.

Cricket being played in Japan is one of the more unlikely sentences in Associate cricket, but Korogi Athletic Park in Nisshin is its physical proof. The venue was converted from a baseball facility specifically for the 2026 Asian Games and is designed as a legacy ground intended to grow Japan’s cricketing base after the tournament ends. Aichi Prefecture, which contains Nagoya, is one of Japan’s most industrialised regions; the notion that a cricket ground now sits within it, ready to host an Asian Games knockout qualifier, is exactly the kind of expansion the ICC’s Associate development framework was designed to produce.

Nepal and Hong Kong represent two distinct models of how Associate cricket develops. Nepal built their programme from the ground up in Kathmandu, without a large South Asian diaspora funding it, without established coaching infrastructure, relying on the Cricket Association of Nepal’s patient development of the Kirtipur ground and a generation of players who had never seen international cricket played in their own country until they were old enough to play it themselves. Hong Kong’s cricket is powered largely by its South Asian community, particularly the significant South Asian population that has made Hong Kong a hub across multiple industries. Both models have produced teams capable of competing at Asian Games level, which is the point.

For Associate nations, the multi-sport event context of the Asian Games changes the meaning of cricket in ways that ICC tournaments do not. Here, cricket sits alongside athletics, swimming, and gymnastics. A cricket gold medal carries the same flag as every other event on the schedule. Players who spend their careers in the small rooms of Associate cricket, without full-time contracts or large crowds or much media attention, suddenly find themselves at a Games where the world is watching sport in the broadest sense. What elimination means in this context is different from what it means at an ICC qualifier: it means leaving a multi-sport event, not just a cricket tournament.

A 9:00 AM JST start translates to 5:30 AM IST in India (the subcontinent will be awake for this match given Nepal’s fanbase), midnight GMT in London the previous night, 11:00 AM AEST in Sydney, and 8:00 PM EDT on the evening of September 25 in New York. For live conversions, check Japan time, Nepal time, and Hong Kong time.

Nepal reached the Asian Games cricket tournament by qualifying through the Asia Qualifier, the same route that sent them to T20 World Cups in 2024 and 2026. Hong Kong went through the same pathway. Whichever team wins this group match in Japan will face either India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, or Bangladesh in the quarterfinals, a challenge that tests everything they have built. But losing here, in Nisshin, with the Games still going on around them, means watching that quarterfinal from a flight home.