Why hockey, badminton, wrestling, cricket and more are not at the 2026 Commonwealth Games

3 min readUpdated: Jul 22, 2026 06:34 PM The 2026 Commonwealth Games starts on Thursday in Glasgow, Scotland with the opening ceremony taking place at the OVO Hydro at 10.30pm . Indians will be action on the first day before the opening ceremony though with the preliminary stages of bowls getting underway. As the Games go on, however, one may notice the absence of some of India’s biggest stars in sports like badminton, wrestling, shooting, cricket and hockey. The reason for this is that their sport itself has been dropped at this year’s CWG.
The 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham featured 19 sports but this year, that number has been reduced to just 10. Among the disciplines dropped are six in which India had won a medal last time around — contributing to nearly half of the country’s medal haul.
Why have the sports been dropped?
The answer to that is the economics sprung up the troubled bidding process for the 2026 Games, which was triggered the city of Durban, South Africa, being stripped of the hosting rights for the 2022 CWG. This resulted in Birmingham moving up its bid from 2026 to 2022. The 2026 edition was then scheduled to be held in Victoria, Australia, with the Victorian State Government’s being announced as a success on April 12, 2022. However, a year later, the state government announced its intention to cancel hosting the Games due to spiralling costs.
Glasgow eventually was announced as the host only on September 17, 2024.With there being just about three years to prepare for the Games, the organisers said that this was enough to plan and execute a full-scale Games. Hence, the number of sports was slashed down just under half compared to 2022.
India’s traditional medal-winning sports that have been axed
India finished fourth at the 2022 CWG with 61 medals. A significant contributor to this were the 30 medals won in wrestling (12), table tennis (7), badminton (6), hockey (2), Cricket (1), Squash (2) — all of which have been dropped. There was already furore over archery and shooting being dropped, which were also sports in which Indian athletes traditionally medalled.
So which are the sports that will be featured at Glasgow 2026? Athletics, swimming, track cycling, weightlifting, 3×3 basketball, lawns bowls, netball, artic gymnastics, judo and boxing; of which six will be running their corresponding para events simultaneously as well — athletics, swimming, track cycling, weightlifting, lawn bowls and basketball.