As is normal at the multisports events, the Caribbean islands that entered participated as separate nations, not as the combined West Indies team.

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.

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.

Trinidad and Tobago declined the invitation to participate,[10] whilst Guyana, finalists at the 1997–98 Red Stripe Bowl, was a late withdrawal due to financial reasons.

[12] Australia South Africa India New Zealand Pakistan Sri Lanka Zimbabwe Antigua and Barbuda Barbados Jamaica Kenya Scotland Northern Ireland Canada A total of six venues were used for the tournament,[13] with all matches being played on turf wickets.

[47][48] South Africa played the provincial team of KwaZulu-Natal at City Oval in Pietermaritzburg securing a narrow victory.

[50][51][52][53][54][55] Australia were defeated by an Australian Cricket Academy XI at the Allan Border Field in Brisbane[36][b] before travelling up to Buderim where they also played New South Wales and the match against New Zealand, winning both.

[37][55] 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.

[7] The ranking of teams in the group stage was determined as follows:[58] Sri Lanka won all three of their games to qualify for the semi-finals.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[90] Put in by South Africa after losing the toss, the Australians were indebted to captain Steve Waugh's unbeaten 90 as they recovered from 58/4 to post a still below-par 183 all out.

Opposing captain Pollock was the chief destroyer for South Africa, with 4–19 from nine tight overs to remove Mark Waugh, Ponting, Gilchrist and Lehmann.

[91] The final standings were as follows: Gold medal-winning South African captain Pollock praised the Commonwealth experience while recalling his time at the Games for ESPNcricinfo.

The next year at the 141st IOC Session in Mumbai in October 2023, cricket was added to the Olympic program in the form of men's and women's T20 events beginning in Los Angeles in 2028.