Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports officially approves Indian esports athletes for 19th Asian Games 

The 15-member Indian esports contingent has received official approval from the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports to participate in the 19th Asian Games scheduled to be held later this year in Hangzhou, China. India will partake in four of the seven available events in it — including Dota 2, FIFA Online 4, Street Fighter V: Champion Edition, and League of Legends.

Previously, Indian players (Shikhar Choudhary and Karthik Varma) were also set to participate in Hearthstone. However, unfortunately, the Olympic Council of Asia withdrew that title entirely from the esports program due to the closure of Blizzard Entertainment in Mainland China.

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Indian esports players approved by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports for the 19th Asian Games

List of Indian esports at 19Asian Games (Image via Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports letter)

On August 24, 2023, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports approved the names of the sportspersons now set to participate in the Hangzhou Asian Games starting September 23, 2023. The selected players for this competition's four medal esports events are:

League of Legends (Team)

• Sanindhya Malik
• Mihir Ranjan
• Aditya Selvaraj
• Aakash Shandilya
• Akshaj Shenoy
• Samarth Aravind Trivedi

Dota 2 (Team)

• Darshan Chandan Bata
• Shubham Shridhar Goli
• Ketan Sunil Goyal
• Abhishek Yadav
• Krish Nitin Gupta

FIFA Online 4

• Charanjot Singh
• Karman Singh

Street Fighter V

• Mayank Prajapati
• Ayan Biswas

Unfortunately, no Indian players will be participating in the other three esports events. Arena of Valor and PUBG Mobile were banned in India under Section 69A of the IT Act 2000 in 2020. Dream Three Kingdoms 2 is not yet accessible in the country.

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Asian Games esports seeding events

Road to Asian Games, a qualification competition, was held for multiple esports titles over these last few weeks to determine the seeding for the Asian Games' main event. Charanjot Singh was in red-hot form and secured the top spot in South Asia for FIFA Online 4, while Karman Singh came 6th during this seeding event.

The Indian League of Legends team received a favorable seeding for the main event. Its Dota 2 squad was defeated by Nepal's squad and finished second in the South Asia seeding group. Simultaneously, Indian Street Fighter V representatives Ayan Biswas and Mayank Prajapati came fifth and sixth during the event for East and South Asia.

Now, it remains to be seen how the participating players and teams perform during the Asian Games' main event; fans are hopeful that the Indian contingent will attain multiple medals.