The Women's T20 Asia Cup 2026 gets underway on August 28 in Dubai, with all matches staged at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium. The tournament's marquee fixture, India against Pakistan, is set for September 5, and the final is scheduled for September 13.
Full schedule
This is the first time the Women's T20 Asia Cup has been hosted in the UAE, and organisers have packed the eight-team event into a little over a fortnight, all under lights at the same venue. Hong Kong China and Thailand get things going on August 28 in the tournament opener. The group stage runs through the first week of September, with Pakistan playing Thailand on September 1 before the eyes of the cricketing world turn to September 5, when India and Pakistan meet in what is always the tournament's biggest draw regardless of the group-stage stakes. Pakistan round out their group games against Hong Kong on September 7, by which point the league phase wraps up. The two semi-finals follow on September 10 and 11, before the final closes out the tournament on September 13.
Groups and format
The eight participating sides have been split into two groups of four. Group A contains India, Pakistan, Thailand and Hong Kong, while Group B is made up of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia and the UAE. Each team plays the other three sides in its group once, and the top two finishers from each group advance to the semi-finals, setting up the usual cross-group knockout ties before the final. It's a format the Asian Cricket Council has used in recent editions, and it tends to reward consistency across three group games rather than a single big result.
Sri Lanka arrive in Dubai as defending champions after winning the 2024 edition, their first Women's Asia Cup title, ending a long run of dominance by India. India, however, remain the tournament's most successful side by some distance, having lifted the trophy in the majority of editions since the competition began, and they'll go in as favourites even with Sri Lanka now a genuine threat rather than perennial also-rans.
India's squad
Harmanpreet Kaur continues as India's captain, with Smriti Mandhana as her deputy, in a 15-member squad that blends established names with some of the newer faces who have come through over the past couple of seasons. Deepti Sharma, Richa Ghosh and Radha Yadav all return as key figures across the batting, wicketkeeping and bowling departments, while Shafali Verma and Renuka Thakur add firepower at either end of the innings. The squad also includes Arundhati Reddy, Sree Charani, Kranti Gaud, Nandani Sharma, Bharti Fulmali, Prema Rawat and G. Kamalini as the second wicketkeeping option.
One late change worth noting: Pratika Rawal has come into the squad in place of Jemimah Rodrigues, who was ruled out after suffering a high-grade right hamstring tear during her stint in The Hundred in England. The BCCI's medical team confirmed the injury in mid-August, and Rawal's inclusion gives India another top-order batter used to opening in white-ball cricket, which should soften the blow of losing a player as important as Rodrigues to India's middle order.
Where to watch
Broadcast and streaming arrangements for the tournament had not been fully confirmed at the time of writing, though matches involving India have historically drawn coverage across major cricket broadcasters and streaming platforms in South Asia, and fans should expect similar arrangements this time given the tournament's profile and the India-Pakistan clash on the calendar. Details are expected to firm up as the opening match approaches.
What to expect
With India chasing another title, Sri Lanka defending the one they finally broke through for in 2024, and Pakistan carrying the weight of that September 5 fixture, this edition has plenty of subplots even before a ball is bowled. The single-venue format in Dubai means there's no travel disruption to worry about, just a tight, high-intensity block of cricket where group placings could hinge on net run rate as much as results. Keep an eye on how the smaller sides — Thailand, Hong Kong, Indonesia and the UAE — fare against the bigger three, because a genuine upset in the group stage would reshape the knockout picture in a hurry. Either way, the next two and a half weeks in Dubai should go a long way toward defining where women's T20 cricket in Asia stands heading into the next World Cup cycle.
