Team India starts Esports Nations Cup 2026 regional qualifier with a win over Hong Kong

The Esports Nations Cup 2026: East & South Asia Qualifier kicked off this morning as Bhavi, f1redup's Last Dance being the Indian team in the regional qualifier. Amongst the eight teams in the regional qualifier, India started their campaign against Hong Kong in the round 1 game and picked up a 2-0 win to move into round 2.

The Team India squad participating at the regional qualifier is as follows:

• Bhavi

• f1redup

• FUR1OUS

• clouda

• CycloneF

Hong Kong's pick of Dust2 was the series opening and it was a one sided map as Bhavi, f1redup and CycloneF powered the Indian team to a big 13-2 win. Moving to Ancient, their own pick, the Indian team finally were tested as it was a two round lead at the break and crucial clutches from clouda, Bhavi and FUR1OUS saw the Indian squad wrap up things at 13-8 with clouda on top of the scoreboard with 23 kills and a 1.52 rating.

The Indian team is set to play Mongolia next in the round 2 game and will need two more BO3 wins in the upper bracket to clear the regional qualifier. Should Team India lose against Mongolia, they will be dropped to the lower bracket round 2 where they will face Korea. A win will see them move to the upper bracket round 3, where Team China await them.

The other opening round games saw Mongolia beat Japan, while China beat Korean and Pakistan took down Chinese Taipei. Pakistan went down to China in the upper bracket round 2 game while Hong Kong and Korea stayed alive in the lower bracket at the expense of Japan and Chinese Taipei respectively.