The relief was writ large on the face of Axar Patel when his final delivery of the match went for a dot ball. India’s raucous fans celebrated, but they knew that Japanese batter Alexander Shirai-Patmore and his teammates had just come perilously close to inflicting one of the biggest upsets in cricket history.
Japan, ranked 41st in the world, had taken the T20 world champions to the final ball in a brief but incident-packed meeting last week between the sport’s minnows and giants that hours earlier had looked like falling victim to Typhoon Dujuan.
A Japan side that has never reached the qualifying tournament for the T20 World Cup came within three runs of beating the illustrious visitors, who had set them a modest 33 to win in a curtailed match.
That, though, was only one of the post-match talking points in Sano, a city of 110,000 north of Tokyo. How had Japan, an International Cricket Council associate member, managed to persuade a team of India’s pedigree to turn out on a pitch in the grounds of a disused high school, and in a location most Japanese associate with its profusion of ramen restaurants?
The answer lies in a succession of coincidences involving politicians and cricket administrators, a Sri Lankan groundsman and an army of nocturnal volunteers armed with sponges.
Naoki Alex Miyaji saw an opportunity to promote the sport he has loved since childhood when cricket was added to the schedule for the 2026 Asian Games, which opened in Aichi-Nagoya in central Japan this month.
“Initially I thought the idea of Japan playing India was just a dream,” Miyaji, the chief executive of the country’s cricket association, said. “But the people I sounded out at ICC events were really supportive, although they couldn’t promise anything.”
History and politics were on Japan’s side. Next year Tokyo and New Delhi will celebrate 75 years of diplomatic ties, a benchmark in a relationship that has flourished since the prime ministership of Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated in 2022, and his Indian counterpart and fellow conservative Narendra Modi.
Miyaji and his colleagues knew the Asian Games could tip the scales in Sano’s favour provided they could turn its ageing pitch into one that matched the conditions India and other teams would play on in Aichi. When organisers found a locally sourced clay that worked for the Games, Japan’s administrators, with the help of the Sri Lankan groundsman Mahesh Bopage, decided it only made sense to rebuild the Sano pitch using the same material.
But an international-standard wicket would have counted for nought without the political lobbying that had been set in motion at the start of the year.
In January the Japan foreign minister, Toshimitsu Motegi, visited New Delhi, where he met the Indian external affairs minister, S Jaishankar. Their strategic dialogue ended with an exchange of gifts: a shocking-pink replica Japan cricket shirt for the host, and a cricket bat signed by members of the Indian team for the visitor.
Japan had another ace up its sleeve. Not only was Motegi his country’s most senior diplomat; his parliamentary constituency, the Tochigi 5th District, includes a small, ramen-loving city by the name of Sano.
Six months later when the Japan prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, met Modi in the Indian capital, the leaders signed an agreement that reportedly included mention of a cricket match that would double as a grassroots curtain raiser to the diplomatic anniversary and an intriguing prelude to the Asian Games, where India are defending the title they won in 2023 in Hangzhou.
Japan’s opportunity to make their case to the most powerful administrator in world cricket came in July, at the ICC’s annual general meeting in Edinburgh, where officials raised the prospect of a Japan-India match with a “very supportive” Jay Shah, the body’s chairman and son of India’s minister of home affairs, Amit Shah – a close ally of Modi, and a fellow native of the state of Gujarat.
The BCCI gave the match its official blessing as recently as August. “I was, like, wow, this is really going to happen,” Miyaji said. “Everything came together at exactly the right time. If any of those factors had been missing, I don’t think we would have been able to pull it off.”
The political stars had aligned, and concerns about the cost of putting on what would be the most-watched match in Japanese cricket history eased when Suzuki Motors, whose presence in India spans more than four decades, agreed to be its main sponsor. Tickets costing ¥10,000 (£48) apiece sold out in three hours, many of them snapped up by members of Japan’s large Indian community.
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It’s grimly emblematic of the threat to sport posed by the climate crisis that Japan’s dreams risked being shattered just hours before the teams were due to take the pitch. As the facilities at Sano neared completion – including temporary stands to quadruple the capacity to 2,000 – Typhoon Dujuan was forming over the western Pacific.
By last Monday it had swept north, forcing the cancellation of an open practice session at Sano on the eve of the match. About 200 volunteers joined forces while the rain was still coming down, working in shifts through the night to remove water weighing down the covers and to get the outfield, which by now resembled a lake, as dry as possible. There were 20 to 30 people on the pitch at any one time, some mopping up water with sponges or removing it one shovelful at a time.
Then the cricket gods smiled on Sano, which woke up to bright sunshine that was forecast to last into the afternoon. For now, the match was on.
“It was an incredible feeling,” Miyaji said. “I had no idea the whole thing was going to be so complicated. The thought that it could all go pear-shaped because of the rain … I knew there was another pitch inspection coming and I was thinking, please, please, let us play some cricket.”
When the outfield was deemed too wet for the planned start time of 1pm, players and Japanese officials feared the worst. While Indian fans waved their national flag and first-time cricket watchers studied handouts explaining the laws of the game, India communicated to match officials that they were determined to play. After a final, decisive pitch inspection, the players emerged for a match that had been slashed to just five overs apiece.
Not that that mattered to the 2,149 people there to witness cricket history being made, as the sides squeezed every possible drop of drama out of their 10 overs: boundaries, catches, aggressive spin, a run out, and the controversial decision by the on-field umpires to overturn a wide decision that would have left Japan needing an achievable six runs off four balls.
“That was a scary half hour,” Ravi, an Indian fan who had travelled from his home in Shizuoka, more than 200 miles away, said of the hosts’ valiant run chase. “But I’m really proud of Japan, too. They got the chance to improve themselves by playing India, and they put on a magnificent show.”
After the skies over Sano had turned red and clusters of Indian fans waited for one last glimpse of their heroes before they boarded the team bus, perhaps the best summary came from the greatest Indian cricketer of all time.
“There’s something very special about watching cricket find new homes,” Sachin Tendulkar wrote on X. “We’ve all had our first cricket match. It’s lovely to see more people getting theirs.”
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