The qualifiers feature Japan and fellow cricket minnows Vanuatu, Fiji, Samoa, Indonesia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, the Cook Islands and South Korea.<\/p>\n
Local resident Yuya Okimasu, who watched Japan play Vanuatu with his wife and two young children, told AFP that they had only heard of cricket because his daughter watched the Australian cartoon Bluey.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m looking at the rules as I\u2019m watching the game because I don\u2019t understand it, but it looks fun,\u201d the 34-year-old, who was attending his first cricket match, said.<\/p>\n
Bouncy pitch<\/p>\n
About 300 people turned up to watch Japan\u2019s opening game on a windy weekend morning, most sitting on deck chairs within earshot of a commentator guiding them through the basics of the game.<\/p>\n
Temporary stands will be in place at the Asian Games, taking the capacity up to around 2000.<\/p>\n
While the continent\u2019s star players may be used to grander surroundings, they are unlikely to be disappointed by the quality of the pitch.<\/p>\n
That is the responsibility of Asitha Wijayasinghe, who also curates the pitch at the 35,000-capacity Pallekele International Cricket Stadium in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n
Adam Birss, Korogi Sports Park\u2019s Asian Games operations manager, says the pitch is likely to be \u201cbouncy\u201d, despite typhoon season usually arriving in Japan in September.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say that it should act like the pitches in Pakistan, which are bouncy but also take spin,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s got a grippy surface, so if you put spin on the ball, it will spin off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Korogi Sports Park is part of an ambitious strategy to popularise cricket in baseball-mad Japan, which world governing body the ICC sees as one of its \u201cpriority countries\u201d.<\/p>\n
Playing numbers are on the rise, and the Japan Cricket Association (JCA) has had some success in carving out a tentative foothold for the sport in and around Tokyo.<\/p>\n
Cricket\u2019s inclusion in the Asian Games was only confirmed in April last year, and the JCA argued unsuccessfully that it should be played in Sano, a hotbed for the sport about 100km outside the capital.<\/p>\n
Curious spectators clutching rulebooks watch a game in Japan’s brand-new cricket ground, four months before it hosts matches at the Asian Games. Photo \/ Andrew Caballero-Reynolds, AFP<\/p>\n
\u2018Vacuum area\u2019<\/p>\n
JCA chief executive Naoki Alex Miyaji says Nagoya is \u201ca huge vacuum area for cricket\u201d and he worries that there might not be enough time to drum up interest there.<\/p>\n
\u201cCreating something here with the Asian Games is an ideal situation, but not when you\u2019re talking with 15 months\u2019 preparation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Miyaji is also concerned about the long-term future of Korogi Sports Park, which will be shared with baseball teams when the Asian Games are over.<\/p>\n
The question of who maintains the pitch is another unresolved issue, but Miyaji hopes the venue can be \u201cone of the key ingredients of the growth of cricket in Japan\u201d.<\/p>\n
The local mayor has been an enthusiastic supporter, and there is certainly interest among those watching Japan\u2019s game against Vanuatu.<\/p>\n
The Japanese players do their bit, beating their opponents by 30 runs.<\/p>\n
With only four months to go until the Asian Games begin, Japan\u2019s players are hoping the buzz continues.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ground looks in incredible condition given that they only started building it a few months ago,\u201d said Japan captain Kendel Kadowaki-Fleming.<\/p>\n
\u201cExcitement is the overwhelming emotion that we\u2019re feeling about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
– AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The qualifiers feature Japan and fellow cricket minnows Vanuatu, Fiji, Samoa, Indonesia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[6213,218683,9218,489,63919,3013,121775,16558,5512,307,3011,8619,6489,109,25630,296,702,1759,16847,663,13085,3234,111,139,69,46028,2751,219392,145402,213,16349,37733,16670,105044],"class_list":["post-427985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-asian","tag-batsman","tag-before","tag-books","tag-brandnew","tag-but","tag-clutching","tag-cricket","tag-curious","tag-dont","tag-four","tag-fun","tag-games","tag-ground","tag-hosts","tag-into","tag-it","tag-japan","tag-japans","tag-looks","tag-matches","tag-months","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-rule","tag-sand","tag-smacks","tag-spectators","tag-sports","tag-surrounding","tag-understand","tag-watch","tag-weeds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}