At the age of 26, Maharashtra-born Ruturaj Gaikwad became the first Indian captain to win Gold Medal in Asian Games Men’s Cricket division.
Ruturaj Becomes the First Indian Captain to Win Gold Medal in Asian Games
Ruturaj Gaikwad achieved this feat during the Asian Games 2023 played at Hangzhou. The 19th Asian Games is scheduled to be held from 23 September to 8 October 2023 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China.
Hangzhou will be the third Chinese city to host the Asian Games, after Beijing in 1990 and Guangzhou in 2010. The Indian men’s and women’s cricket teams, led by Ruturaj Gaikwad and Harmanpreet Kaur, respectively, were set to be making their Asian Games debut in Hangzhou.
Earlier to the Men’s Cricket team, the Women’s cricket team also won the GOLD medal by beating Sri Lanka in the Asian Games 2023 Final by 19 runs. With huge expectations around the Indian Cricket Team in the Asian Games 2023, Ruturaj Gaikwad led team fulfiled the expectations by adding another Gold medal to the Indian Medal Tally.
India who became the first team to qualify for the Final was scheduled to face Afghanistan on October 7 to play the final game. Winning the toss, India decided to bowl first and made an impressive start to the game.
Shivam Dube dismissed Afghanistan’s opener Zubaid Akbari and drew the first blood while Arshdeep Singh dismissed Mohammad Shahzad for 4 runs and added pressure to the batters.
Afghanistan lost their first 3 wickets for 12 runs and was in need of building a partnership to save the sinking ship. Shahidullah Kamal and Gulbadin Naib became the saviours of the game by adding 60 runs to the scoreboard.
While Afghanistan were batting at 18.2 overs, the rain intervened in the game and forced the match to halt when Afghanistan scored 112 runs for 5 wickets. As the rain continued to pour past the cutoff time, the officials declared India as the winner and awarded the Gold medal on account of being the higher seeds.
Indian Men’s Cricket team won the Gold medal without batting a single over in the Final game of the tournament. Afghanistan and Sri Lanka bagged a silver medal each while Bangladesh secured the bronze medal by beating Pakistan by 6 wickets(DLS method). With the Gold, India’s medal tally moves to 102 in their overall medal count.
