From samurai threat to Asian Games as Japan cricket fights obscurity
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This photo taken on June 4, 2025, shows an equipment bag belonging to the Japan Cricket Association on the sidelines of the women's Sano City International Trophy cricket match between Japan and Hong Kong in Sano, Tochigi prefecture. — AFP
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Sano, Japan: The symptoms of the symptoms are that the threats of murder by the invasive Samara Warriors were related to Japan’s first cricket match in 1863 and since then the game has fought to recognize the baseball -administered country.
But Japan’s Cricket Association, which runs out of a defective school near a mountain in the jungle, says the game is slowly gaining popularity and hopes that next year’s home Asian Games and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics can take it to a new level.
“Here is trying to provide people with opportunities to play for the entire 11 years,” said Japan Cricket Association Chief Operations Officer Alan Kiror. “If they know that the game is present, it’s very easy. Finally, you can’t be what you can’t see.”
Cricket says cricket is growing every year in Japan, with more than 5,000 adults and children playing regular games, and about three times more than three times he has tried in some form. It is still a decline in the sea compared to Japanese baseball, which millions of people play and produce global superstars like Los Angeles Dodgers, Shohi Ohtani.
The two games arrived in Japan at the same time, though cricket was slightly less. A threat of Samurai’s threat to killing all foreigners who refused to leave Japan indicated a group of Europeans to be protected from the British Navy in Yokohama.
He had a game of cricket for the passage of time, playing with guns loaded to avoid a possible attack. A Scottish tea merchant founded the first cricket club in Japan five years later, but failed to catch beyond foreign circles.
According to the Global Governing Body ICC, in the late 1980s, many universities began to play – “Students were looking for something unique”. The game has maintained a niche presence, though the increasing number of South Asian people in Japan has promoted the game population. Japan’s national teams reflect the roots of the sports wealth, which includes many players with parents of cricket players.
The JCA, which was founded in 1984, has worked hard to introduce cricket to these people, focusing on their efforts on the elected hubs across the country. Japan’s Women’s Twenty20 Captain Mai Yangida told AFP that she “knows the name but did not know what kind of game it was” unless she took cricket at the University of Wesda in Tokyo.
“I played softball and baseball before, but in cricket, you can hit 360 degrees in cricket,” he said in the Women’s Sanu City International Trophy this month. “I think it’s another game where you need to play as a team.”
The Sano City Tournament was played 100 km (60 miles) outside Tokyo at the Cricket Headquarters in Japan, in a high school playground that closed its doors more than a decade ago.
After losing to its opening game, Japan proceeded to lift the trophy, defeating Hong Kong in the final of a tournament, which included fellow cricketing Monoz China, the Philippines and Mongolia.
The win came weeks after Japanese men qualify for next year’s U -19 World Cup in Zimbabwe and Namibia. The Los Angeles Games will present cricket in Japan in next year’s Asian Games before returning to the Olympic program for the first time since 1900.
Japanese women won a bronze medal at the 2010 Asian Games and the men started their 2023 edition, which won with a win and a defeat. The men’s team featured former professional baseball player Shogo Kimora, who contested cricket in 2017 after a 14 -year career with some of Japan’s biggest teams.
Yangida believes that Nagoya Achi and Asian Games at the Olympics could have a “really huge impact” on a cricket profile in Japan. “It will be in the news as an Olympic Game, so media can help cricket the name more widely known,” he said.
A qualifying for the LA will be a long order for Japan, with the men’s T20 team at 43rd, ranked 42nd in the world. All the players are amateur and Kerr says it can be difficult to organize sports against teams outside Asia.
He acknowledged that there is no “silver pill” to make cricket really popular in Japan, but it will not prevent sports lovers from trying. “You do not succeed overnight, there are always many things that follow it and now we are at this stage,” Kuror said. “We’re creating a platform that we hope to hurt people at some point.”
