India's Pokemon UNITE Team for Asian Games 2026, Assessed
The six players on India's Pokemon UNITE team for Asian Games 2026, their June runner-up run in Bangkok, and the 23 Sept-2 Oct window, assessed.
Who is in India’s Pokemon UNITE team for the Asian Games 2026?
India’s Pokemon UNITE team for Asian Games 2026 is six players, per the ANI wire of 26 August on the ministry sanction order: captain Adnan Mohammed Badshah (Dewas), Reuben Godfrey Fernandes (Mira Bhayandar), Sai Krishna Nalluri (Rajahmundry), Dipjyoti Laxman Nath (Thane), Rudra Narayan Nayak (Bhubaneshwar) and Deepkumar Vipulbhai Patel (Ahmedabad), with coach Zeren Wang per PTI’s June Bangkok wire.
This assesses the squad eight days before the Games open in Aichi-Nagoya: its one international result, and what no page we could open has published.
Hometowns are from the ANI wire at Asianet Newsable, which we read alongside the PTI Bangkok wire and the Pocket Gamer PUACL report on 11 September 2026.
What India’s Pokemon UNITE team did in Bangkok
The squad’s one international result is the AESF Pokemon UNITE Asia International Tournament, which PTI’s wire, datelined Bangkok 22 June, calls AESF-sanctioned and closed, with 11 national teams. Online qualification ran on 14 June; India topped its group; the Grand Finals were played in Bangkok on the Sunday before the dateline.
The bracket, per the same wire: 2-1 over Singapore in Round 1. A loss to Japan in the upper-bracket semifinal. Singapore again in the lower bracket, won again. Japan again in a three-game Grand Final, lost again. Second of 11.
A squad that beat every side it met except one, and met that one twice; Japan won, and Japan hosts these Games. Whether the Bangkok field matches the Games field, no page we could open says.
When is Pokemon UNITE played at the Asian Games 2026?
Per the ANI wire on the sanction order, the Games run 19 September to 4 October and the esports competitions 23 September to 2 October. No organiser page we could open on 11 September gives a UNITE-specific match day, so that ten-day window is the only date this desk will print.
India competes in four titles there, per the sanction order as ANI reports it: League of Legends, Pokemon UNITE, eFootball and Puyo Puyo Champions, 15 players inside a 492-member delegation. The wire puts the programme at 13 titles, which sits awkwardly beside the 11 medal events we reported when the contingent was cleared; nothing we read reconciles the two, so this piece calls UNITE a title India competes in, not a medal event.
Where the six come from: the league, not the orgs
The domestic ladder under this squad is the PUACL 2026 India Division, announced by The Pokemon Company and Skyesports per Pocket Gamer: a $20,000 prize pool, ten orgs (Autobotz, GodLike Esports, Marcos Gaming, Meta Ninza, Reckoning Esports, Revenant XSpark, S8UL, Team Tamilas, True Rippers and WELT Esports) and one slot at the offline finals at Yokohama’s Buntai Arena. GodLike, the 2025 India champions, went out in groups in Japan.
That is the pool. None of the three pages ties any of the six to a PUACL org, so we do not either.
How did India do in Pokemon UNITE at the Asian Games 2022?
The only Hangzhou 2022 record in the source we read is the ANI wire’s line that ESFI sent a 19-member contingent and the League of Legends team finished fifth. It says nothing about a UNITE entry either way, so this desk makes no claim about India’s 2022 UNITE placing.
Bottom line
Six names, one captain, one coach, a runner-up finish from Bangkok and a ten-day window. For an Indian national squad that is an unusually clean sheet, and there is real scrim grind behind a 2-1 over Singapore at an event PTI calls closed.
What would move this up is dull and specific: a UNITE match day, the Games field, and the federation saying which org each player comes from. The roster sheet and the bracket are the beat here; the odds board that circles a Games like this is not, and never will be on this page.