Sawt Falasteen - From samurai threat to Asian Games as Japan cricket fights obscurity

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.

That is still a drop in the ocean compared to Japanese baseball, which is played by millions and produces global superstars such as the Los Angeles Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani.

The two sports arrived in Japan at roughly the same time, although cricket's origins were slightly less auspicious.

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.

Fast forward to the late 1980s and several universities began playing -- "students were looking for something unique", according to global governing body the ICC.

- Spreading the word -

The sport has maintained a niche presence, although rising numbers of South Asian residents in Japan have boosted the playing population.

Japan's national teams reflect the sport's Commonwealth roots, featuring several players with parents from cricket-playing countries.

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.

"I played softball and baseball before that, but in cricket you can hit the ball 360 degrees," she said at the Women's Sano City International Trophy this month.

"I think it's more a sport where you need to play together as a team."

The Sano City tournament was played at Japan's cricket headquarters about 100 km (60 miles) outside of Tokyo, on the playing field of a high school that closed its doors more than a decade ago.

After losing their opening game, Japan went on to lift the trophy, beating Hong Kong in the final of a tournament that also featured fellow cricketing minnows China, the Philippines and Mongolia.

The win came weeks after Japan's men qualified for next year's Under-19 World Cup in Zimbabwe and Namibia.

- From baseball to cricket -

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.

The men's team featured former professional baseball player Shogo Kimura, who took up cricket in 2017 after a 14-year career with some of Japan's biggest teams.

Yanagida believes the Asian Games in Nagoya-Aichi and the Olympics can "have a really big impact" on cricket's profile in Japan.

"It will be in the news as an Olympic sport so the media can help the name cricket become more widely known," she said.

Qualifying for LA will be a tall order for Japan, whose men's T20 team are ranked 42nd in the world, with the women 43rd.

All the players are amateurs and Curr says organising games against teams from outside Asia can be difficult.

He concedes that there is "no silver bullet" to make cricket genuinely popular in Japan but that will not stop those who love the sport from trying.

"You're not an overnight success, there's always a lot of stuff that goes on behind it and we're in that phase now," said Curr.

"We're building a platform that we hope can then shock people at some point."

I.Saadi--SF-PST