Japan cricket fights obscurity amid threats

The JCA, founded in 1984, has worked hard at the game

SANO, JAPAN:

Legend has it that death threats from disgruntled samurai warriors were behind Japan's first cricket match in 1863 and the sport has battled for recognition in the baseball-mad country ever since.But Japan's cricket association, which operates out of a disused school near a wooded mountain, says the sport is slowly gaining popularity and hopes next year's home Asian Games and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics can take it to a new level.

"My whole 11 years here have been about trying to provide people with opportunities to play," said Englishman Alan Curr, Japan Cricket Association's chief operations officer. "That's a lot easier if they know the sport exists. Ultimately, you can't be what you can't see."

Curr says cricket is growing annually in Japan with more than 5,000 adults and children playing the game regularly and about three times as many having tried it in some form.

A samurai threat to kill all foreigners who refused to leave Japan prompted a group of European residents to seek protection from the British navy in Yokohama.

They had a game of cricket to pass the time, playing with loaded guns tucked into their belts to guard against possible attack. A Scottish tea merchant founded the first cricket club in Japan five years later but it failed to catch on beyond expatriate circles.

The JCA, founded in 1984, has worked hard to introduce cricket to people with no previous experience, concentrating their efforts on selected hubs around the country.

Japan women's Twenty20 captain Mai Yanagida told AFP she "knew the name but didn't really know what kind of sport it was" until she took up cricket at Waseda University in Tokyo.

Japan's men qualified for next year's Under-19 World Cup in Zimbabwe and Namibia. Cricket will feature at next year's Asian Games in Japan before it returns to the Olympic programme for the first time since 1900 at the Los Angeles Games.

Japan's women won bronze at the 2010 Asian Games and the men made their debut at the 2023 edition, finishing with one win and one defeat.