Hesson has big aspirations for Pakistan at Asian Games

Pakistan's next challenge comes in the form of the men's event at the Asian Games, starting at the Quarter-final stage against a yet-to-be decided conteder.

Head coach Mike Hesson wants to match the energy that his side brought out at the Asia Cup Final last year, where India edged out Pakistan in a nail-biter.

India are the No.1 ranked side in the ICC Men's T20I Team Rankings, and have back-to-back ICC Men's T20 World Cup titles to their name. 

Both teams are directly seeded into the Quarter-finals and hence will not face-off against each other immediately, but might meet at a later stage. 

"India are the benchmark in terms of white-ball cricket at the moment and our challenge is to catch up to that," said Hesson in a pre-departure camp.

"We are preparing as best as we can and if we get an opportunity to play [India], we will certainly put them under pressure as we were able to do in the final of the Asia Cup.

"There is a lot of cricket to be played between now and before being able to play the final for both sides, so we are not getting too far ahead of ourselves."

Pakistan's last assignment in the shortest format came at the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 finishing with a close 5-run victory over Sri Lanka but failed to claim a Semi-final spot.  

Hesson still has high aspirations for his side and is focused to build on the positives that has helped his side rise places in the ICC Men’s T20I Team Rankings, besides a difficult period in other formats for Pakistan.  

"We were eighth in the world in T20 cricket when I came in and now have gone up to fifth (sixth). We have gone up 30 points, which has happened only by winning series. We have won not only in Pakistan, but in Dubai and America etc.

"We have won a lot of series over the last 15 months in T20 cricket so I think it is not fair to put all three formats [in terms of form] together." Hesson added.

"So, we are struggling in Test cricket and in ODI cricket we are developing heading into the World Cup and we have certainly improved our performance in the last 12 months, but we are by no means a finished product."

The Asian Games began today on the of 24th September with wins from Afghanistan and Malaysia to commence the group stage.