COULD JAPAN BECOME EAST ASIA’S LEADING CRICKET TEAM?

From May 9th – 15th, the Sri Lankan men’s Emerging squad visited Sano, Japan. During this visit, the team played five matches against Japan’s national team at a local cricket stadium. Sano City has been working enthusiastically to make cricket popular for more than a decade. While the potential of this country in cricket is still unknown, it could be an interesting shift of power if we are able to see the rise of Northeast Asia in cricket.

Fresh in our minds is Japan’s victory at the recent World Baseball Classic back in March, and as you can see, baseball has traditionally been one of the most popular sports among other sports. In Japan, besides watching the world-class domestic league as well as big international events such as the Olympics and WBC, it is also very common to play for students as an extracurricular activity. There are even many bookmakers that allow you to bet on Japanese baseball.

Cricket has fallen behind the popularity of baseball in Japan and has not been able to win the spot as a well-known sport as it deserves. But on the other hand, as an early form of cricket is said to be the model of current baseball, there are many similarities in terms of rules and playing styles, hence making it easy for leading baseball players to try cricket: former professional baseball player Shogo Kimura, who played for NPB, also participated in the match held during the Sri Lankan team’s visit to Japan.

In the future, if the level of the Japanese team rises and they can leave excellent results in international games, it may be possible that cricket acquires a major position in Japan at once. In the past, rugby has suddenly become the center of attention in the country thanks to its strong performance at the 2019 Rugby World Cup, and there is a good chance that cricket will follow suit.

Again, however, the potential of this country in cricket is still unknown. Japan’s men’s national team won the T20 World Cup East Asia qualifiers in October 2022 and will be participating in the T20 World Cup East Asia-Pacific qualifiers to be held in Papua New Guinea in July this year. In this tournament, where in addition to Japan, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, and the Philippines will compete, the winning team will qualify for the 2024 T20 World Cup to be held in the West Indies and the US.

Currently, the world ranking of cricket is completely dominated by South Asian countries such as India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka as well as British Commonwealth countries such as England, Australia, New Zealand, and so on. Northeast Asian countries, including Japan, do not even appear in the rankings.

One of the matches between Japan and Sri Lanka ended with Sri Lanka overwhelming the Samurais with 57-125. The gap might still be big, however, if Japan can seize the opportunity to strengthen itself and take the lead within the region, then to the world stage, we may be able to witness a big success like the one we saw at the Rugby World Cup in 2019.