International cricket tournament
Cricket was included in the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Malaysia. This was the only time cricket was played at a Commonwealth Games until a women's tournament was included in the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Matches were played over 50 overs, and had List A status rather than full One Day Internationals. As is normal at the multisports events, the Caribbean islands that entered participated as separate nations, not as the combined West Indies team. Indeed, the Games were the first occasion on which an Antigua and Barbuda side competed at a senior level. Northern Ireland also entered, this occurrence being noteworthy because Irish cricket is usually represented by an all-island Irish cricket team.
Sixteen teams entered the competition, including seven of the nine then Test-playing nations: West Indies did not enter as mentioned above, while England declined to send a team at all, on the grounds that the September date chosen clashed with other fixtures such as the end of the County Championship.
The strength of the teams that were entered varied somewhat. Strong squads including seasoned Test and ODI players were fielded by the three nations that eventually won medals: Bronze medalists New Zealand with Stephen Fleming and Daniel Vettori, silver medalists Australia with Steve and Mark Waugh, Adam Gilchrist, Ricky Ponting, Damien Fleming and Darren Lehmann and gold medalists South Africa with Shaun Pollock, Jacques Kallis, Makhaya Ntini, Mark Boucher, and Herschelle Gibbs. India and Pakistan sent weakened teams as a result of a clash with the 1998 'Friendship' Cup, although India still named Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh and VVS Laxman in its Commonwealth team while Pakistan included Shoaib Akhtar and Arshad Khan. Other notable cricketers who took part in the Commonwealth tournament included Sri Lanka's Mahela Jayawardene, Zimbabwe's Andy Flower and the West Indies' Curtly Ambrose and Richie Richardson, playing for their home country of Antigua and Barbuda under the Commonwealth format.
Schedule.
The competition schedule for the cricket tournament was as follows: 
Two days of matches were played before the opening ceremony on Friday 11 September. All matches began at 10:00 am with the lunch interval scheduled between 1:30 and 2:15 pm and the afternoon session running until 5:45 pm, with the exception of the bronze medal match which began 30 minutes earlier. Sunday 20 September was designated as a reserve day. 
Qualification.
The first slot of the 16 team tournament was made up the hosts Malaysia. The 9 full members of International Cricket Council at the time were invited to participate with all accepting save for England who declined due the Games clashing with the final two rounds of the 1998 County Championship. The West Indies were represented by the Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados and Jamaica. Trinidad and Tobago declined the invitation to participate, whilst Guyana, finalists at the 1997–98 Red Stripe Bowl, was a late withdrawal due to financial reasons.
The final five slots were determined by the final placings in the 1997 ICC Trophy also played in Malaysia 18 months prior. The first three teams were Bangladesh, who would go on to achieve ICC full member status in 2000, Kenya and Scotland. All three teams also achieved a berth in the 1999 Cricket World Cup. The Irish cricket team finish fourth, but with the team representing all of Ireland, Northern Ireland was given the slot. Denmark and the Netherlands, two non-Commonwealth nations finished fifth and sixth so the final place with was achieved by Canada who finished seventh.
Venues.
A total of six venues were used for the tournament, with all matches being played on turf wickets. Only the 13 matches that were played the Perbadanan Kemajuan Negeri Selangor Sports Complex and Tenaga National Sports Complex were broadcast.
Squads.
The following squads were named ahead of the tournament:
Prior to the Games, Glenn McGrath was ruled out of Australia's squad due to injury with Andy Bichel named as his replacement. Basit Ali withdrew from the Pakistani squad after his brother suffered a heart attack. Wajahatullah Wasti was named as his replacement. Lance Klusener withdrew from the South African squad after sustaining an ankle injury during the third Test of South Africa's tour of England in July. Adam Bacher was also unavailable for the Games, suffering an injury to his shoulder. They were replaced by Alan Dawson and Andrew Hudson, respectively.
Players who were unavailable for selection include New Zealand paceman Simon Doull due to a groin strain, Australian leg spinner Shane Warne due to a shoulder injury and New Zealand all-rounder Chris Cairns due to knee surgery.
Officials.
A total of 16 umpires and 6 match referees were selected for the tournament.
Draw.
The 16 teams were divided into four groups of four on a seeded basis in May 1998. Initially, the draw was as follows:
The subsequent final draw saw Antigua and Barbuda replace Guyana in Group B and Barbados and Zimbabwe switching pools.
Warm-up matches.
Several warm-up matches were played prior to the tournament commencing. The Pakistan Cricket Board arranged for two matches to played at Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore between the squad that was to compete at the Games against the squad that would contest the 1998 'Friendship' Cup with the both squads winning one match each. South Africa played the provincial team of KwaZulu-Natal at City Oval in Pietermaritzburg securing a narrow victory. New Zealand played four warm-up matches, three against New South Wales and one against Australia, losing all four. The matches were played at John Blanck Oval in Buderim, Queensland. Australia were defeated by an Australian Cricket Academy XI at the Allan Border Field in Brisbane before travelling up to Buderim where they also played New South Wales and the match against New Zealand, winning both. Finally, the only warm-up match that was played in Malaysia was contested between the hosts and Bangladesh where rain prevented a result from being achieved.
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Group stages.
The competing teams were divided into four groups of four teams, denoted as groups A, B, C and D. Teams in each group played one another in a round-robin basis, with only the top team of each group advancing to the knock out semi finals and play-offs for the gold and bronze medals. 
All times are local, MST ().
Tiebreakers.
The ranking of teams in the group stage was determined as follows:
Group A.
Sri Lanka won all three of their games to qualify for the semi-finals. A straightforward seven-wicket victory over Malaysia (who collapsed from 87/3 to 109 all out; Sri Lanka reached 112/3) was followed by a 67-run win over Jamaica with Gunawardene hitting 107 (Sri Lanka 211/5; Jamaica 144/8), before a decider against Zimbabwe. The Africans reached 265/7 (Campbell 82, Goodwin 55); in reply, Sri Lanka stumbled to 110/5 before Hathurusingha (60) and de Saram (75*) brought them close to victory at 258/6. Streak then took three quick wickets, but the last pair survived to give Sri Lanka a one-wicket win.
In the other Group A games, Zimbabwe (144/4) beat Jamaica (142 all out) by six wickets, with an unbeaten 55 from Evans. Zimbabwe then scored 309/9 (Flower 70, Evans 59, Goodwin 53) as they crushed Malaysia (88 all out; Nkala 3–6) by 221 runs. The wooden spoon game saw Malaysia crumble to 83 all out thanks to 4–13 from Cunningham, losing by six wickets to Jamaica (87/4).
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Group B.
Australia scored three wins out of three in this group. First came a nine wicket win over Canada who scored only 60 all out (Fleming 4–17); the Australians made 61/1 in 14 overs. In their second match, Antigua and Barbuda were dismissed for 99; Australia made 101/3 in reply. Finally, against India, Australia scored a total of 255/5, followed by India who stuttered to 109 all out.
Antigua and Barbuda scored 164/9 (a recovery from 77/7) in a 41-over match against India, but rain fell with India 30/2 in reply and the match was declared a no-result. India's Khurasiya scored 83 against Canada in a total of 157/9, with Kumble then claiming 4–11 as the Canadians were dismissed for 45. Antigua and Barbuda (256/7) beat Canada (135 all out), with Lake making 54 before retiring hurt and then taking 4–17; Walsh also made 51 for the Antiguans.
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Group C.
Honours in this group went to South Africa, who started off against Northern Ireland. The Northern Irish had reached 89/5 from 38.1 overs when it rained, and the Duckworth–Lewis method was used to calculate a target of 131 from 38 overs for the South Africans, who won by making 133/6. South Africa then bowled out Bangladesh for 79 and made 80/5 for a five-wicket victory. In South Africa's final match, Barbados set 254/6 (Wallace 74), but 71 from Kallis and 54 from Gibbs saw their opponents make 257/6 with ten balls remaining.
Barbados (160/6 in 41.3 overs) beat Bangladesh (144/7 in 47 overs, Shahriar Hossain 70*) under the Duckworth–Lewis method, and then beat Northern Ireland by 176 runs. Scores of 92 from Wallace, 66 from Griffith and 60 from Campbell contributed to a score of 296/5, which the Northern Irish never got anywhere near despite Smyth's 58, scoring just 120/7. However, Northern Ireland came back well to beat Bangladesh by 114 runs: the Northern Irish made 177 (McCallan 53) before Cooke took 5–35, as Bangladesh were dismissed for 63.
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Group D.
One-day specialists New Zealand won all their matches in Group D, beginning with a comfortable five-wicket win over Kenya (Kenya 144/8; New Zealand 145/5) before an even more straightforward success against Scotland. The New Zealanders amassed 278/6 (Fleming 102, Parore 87), then Harris took 4–25 as Scotland could manage only 101 all out. Finally the Kiwis won the crunch match against Pakistan by 81 runs: New Zealand's 215/8 was boosted by 66 from Fleming despite Shoaib Akhtar's 4–47, but only three Pakistanis (and extras) reached double figures as they lost their last six wickets for 21 runs, being bowled out for 134 to slide to an 81-run defeat.
Pakistan had earlier been frustrated by rain against Scotland; they had scored 201/5 from their 50 overs (Akhtar Sarfraz 66*) and had reduced the Scots to 31/3 when the weather intervened. The Pakistanis did beat Kenya, however: Odoyo's 4–39 had restricted them to 189/8, but Arshad Khan's 4–14 and Javed Qadeer's five catches behind the stumps helped Pakistan to a 129-run win as they dismissed the Africans for only 60. Odumbe took 5–38 as Kenya kept Scotland down to 156/8; they then made 157/5 to win with 12.3 overs in hand.
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Medal round.
Semi-finals.
South Africa v Sri Lanka.
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A low-scoring game produced a thrilling climax. Gunawardene's 53 held the Sri Lankan innings together after they had been put in to bat by the South Africans, but Boje's List A career best 4/16 kept the Sri Lankans' score down to a distinctly unimpressive 130 as they were bowled out in 44 overs. In reply, South Africa lost wickets at regular intervals, with the highest score being opener Rindel's 25. At 96/9 all looked lost, but then Boje (20*) and Dawson (15*) compiled an unbroken stand of 35 for the last wicket to lead their team to 131/9 and a one-wicket victory.
Australia v New Zealand.
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A totally one-sided trans-Tasman clash saw New