5th National Wheelchair Cricket Championship 2026

The 5th National Wheelchair Cricket Championship 2026, organised by the Wheelchair Cricket India Association (WCIA), was the biggest edition of the tournament yet — a season-long road of zonal qualifiers feeding into a national grand finale.

The zonal road. The West Zone leg was played in Pune on February 19–20, with Maharashtra hosting Gujarat and Mumbai. The South Zone leg — the JMJ South Zone Wheelchair Cricket Championship — followed from March 12–15, 2026 at N. Periasamy Ground, Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu, bringing the southern states together to decide who would travel north.

The grand finale. The championship concluded at the Shaheed Vijay Singh Pathik Sports Complex in Greater Noida from May 3–10, 2026, played in a "Super 5" format between the country's top qualifying sides. Actor Jackie Shroff declared the tournament open, saying he was "overwhelmed by the passion" of the players.

In the final on May 10, Uttar Pradesh posted 191/9 in their 20 overs and held off Haryana, who finished on 186/8 — a 5-run margin, and a third national title for UP. Anil Singhaniya was named Player of the Match with 27 runs and 2 wickets.

A championship at this scale — zonal qualifiers across the country, a week-long national finale, mainstream media coverage — is exactly the kind of structure wheelchair cricket in India has been building toward, and it raises the bar for every state programme feeding into it.