Pakistan at the Asian Games: hockey 2 from 2, two bronzes, China next Thursday

Pakistan's hockey team is two from two at the Asian Games in Japan, with 14 goals scored and one conceded, and China on Thursday decides whether they top Pool B. Everything else at these Games has been thinner: two bronze medals so far, from women's cricket and MMA, and first round exits in swimming, fencing and soft tennis.

Hockey: the one thing going right

Pakistan 9 Thailand 0 on 20 September at the Gifu Prefectural Green Stadium in Kakamigahara. Ahmed Nadeem scored a hat-trick (20th, 37th, 43rd), Sufyan Khan converted two penalty corners, and Moeen Shakeel, Ammad Butt, Rana Waheed and Abdul Hanan Shahid added one each.

Pakistan 5 Uzbekistan 1 on 22 September. Sufyan Khan scored twice again, with Mohammad Ammad, Abdul Rehman and Abu Mahmood also on the sheet.

Pool B also holds Malaysia, China, Oman and Thailand. The top two go through to the knockout and classification rounds, and the final is on 3 October.

Next: Pakistan vs China, Thursday 24 September. Then Malaysia on 26 September and Oman on 28 September. Malaysia is the pool's real test and the fixture that will settle seeding.

Sufyan Khan with four goals in two matches, three of them from penalty corners, is the story inside the story. Pakistan's penalty corner conversion has been the team's weakest number for a decade.

Kabaddi: also unbeaten

Pakistan 58 Nepal 43 in Group B at the Tokai Citizen Gymnasium, captain Mudassar Ali leading, and a 30-17 lead at the break. Thailand was next on Wednesday. Kabaddi is Pakistan's most reliable medal route at these Games after hockey.

The two medals so far

Women's cricket took bronze and MMA took bronze. That is the medal table entry as of 22 September.

Where it went wrong

Swimming: Hamza Asif went 53.97s in the 100m freestyle heats, 35th of 43. Hareem Malik (36.52s) and Mishael Aisha Hyat (37.02s) finished 22nd and 24th of 25 in the women's 50m breaststroke. None advanced.

Fencing: Baryal Khan lost all five bouts in the men's individual foil. Mohammed Yaseen Khan, 18, lost four of five.

Soft tennis: Eraj Zaidi and Kainaat Shallwani each lost both singles matches 4-0. Mohammad Ali and Hussain Arain lost without winning a game.

Boxing: Sumama Rehman went out in the 55kg preliminaries to Tajikistan's Meroj Sufijonov.

What is left

Men's cricket is the other live medal chance. Pakistan's quarter-final is on Monday 28 September, and we have the full draw and the 5am start time. Hockey and kabaddi both run to the first week of October.

Read honestly, the pattern at Aichi-Nagoya is the same one as Hangzhou in 2023: Pakistan is competitive where there is a domestic system behind the athlete, and nowhere near it in the pool or on the piste.

Corrected 23 September 2026: an earlier version gave Pakistan's last two pool matches in the wrong order. Malaysia is on 26 September and Oman on 28 September. Live fixtures and results are on our Pakistan at the Asian Games page.