India's shooters took the first medals of the 2026 Asian Games. In the team sports, the story of the opening weekend has been about scale. A women's hockey team scored 19 goals in one match, the kabaddi side began its title defence with a 25-point win over the hosts, and the women's cricket team booked a place in the final. The figures are striking enough to be worth setting out carefully, with the caveats where reports disagree.
Hockey: 19-0 and a record for one player
On Sunday 20 September, at the Gifu Prefectural Green Stadium, India's women beat Uzbekistan 19-0 in Pool B. The match was the first ever meeting of the two sides at the Asian Games. Deepika Sehrawat scored eight goals, which is reported as the most by any individual in a women's hockey match in the history of the Asian Games.
Reports differ on how the eight were made up. One account credits four from penalty corners and four from open play. Another says six came from penalty corners. This article does not choose between them. One report adds that Deepika's first goal, in the eighth minute, was her 40th for India, and that she had completed a hat-trick by the 25th minute.
Deepika was far from alone. The goals were shared across the squad: Ishika Chaudhary scored three, Navneet Kaur two, Lalthantluangi two (one from a penalty corner and one from a penalty stroke), and Lalremsiami, Baljeet Kaur, Neha Goyal and Sakshi Rana one each. The goals add up to 19 exactly, a good check on any report of a lopsided score. Savita Punia played her 320th international, drawing level with Vandana Katariya as India's most-capped woman.
Nineteen goals across eight scorers. The margin is not one player's day. It is a squad's depth.
A word of caution on the scoreline
Mismatches like this say more about the opposition than the winners. Uzbekistan were meeting India for the first time at the Games, and India are the second-highest-ranked side in the women's competition. Pool games against lower-ranked sides count towards goal difference and confidence, but the real test comes later, against teams of comparable strength. India's head coach is Sjoerd Marijne and the captain is Salima Tete. Their next fixture was against Indonesia on Monday.
Kabaddi: a title defence begins with 49-24
India's men, the reigning champions, opened their Group A campaign against hosts Japan on 21 September at the Tokai Citizen Gymnasium and won 49-24. According to the match report, India dominated the first half and held off a spirited Japan in the second. Kabaddi is a sport in which India expects to win gold, so the result is a solid start, not a surprise. The women's team was due to play Bangladesh at the same venue later in the day.
Cricket: into the final, courtesy of a century in 49 balls
In women's cricket, India reached the final by beating Bangladesh in the second semi-final on 20 September. Cricinfo's match report headline credits Shafali Verma with an unbeaten 100 off 49 balls. The final opponent is Sri Lanka. Reaching the final already guarantees India at least a silver medal. The full scorecard was not available to this article, so the innings is described only as far as that headline goes.
Shooting: the medal rush is not over
The shooters remain in the picture. After Elavenil Valarivan's two silvers in the women's 10m air rifle on Sunday, India's men were in the 10m air rifle qualification on Monday, where one report has Rudrankksh Patil on 631.2 and leading at that stage, with the team total also in front. As with any live qualification figure, it may have changed by the time you read this. Suchika Tariyal had already secured India a medal in MMA by reaching the women's traditional 60kg semi-final.
How to read a lopsided scoreline
A 19-0 result invites two opposite reactions: celebration, and the suspicion that it means little. Both are partly right. Goal difference matters in a pool, where ties on points are broken by it, so big wins are useful. But the more informative numbers are the ones inside the match: how many different players scored, how many chances were created, and whether the team stayed disciplined once the game was won. On the first of those, eight different scorers is a good sign. On the others, this article has no verified data to offer.
A rout tells you the floor of a team. The knockout rounds tell you the ceiling.
What the early numbers say
Four medals are won or assured in the first two days: two silvers in shooting, a guaranteed medal in women's cricket and another in MMA. In team sports, the pattern is control against weaker opposition, with the harder matches still to come. The Games run until 4 October, and the medal table will look different by the time the knockout rounds arrive.
For now, the story is depth. Hockey scored 19 with eight different scorers, kabaddi won by 25, and a cricket final was reached through an individual century. India has arrived at Aichi-Nagoya with several routes to medals, which is the best position to be in when the difficult fixtures begin.
