Japan Push India to the Final Ball in Sano

Japan came within three runs of beating the T20 world champions last week, and it took India's Axar Patel a full final delivery to shut the door.

The match, in Sano, a city of 110,000 north of Tokyo, had looked doomed hours earlier when Typhoon Dujuan threatened to wash it out. It survived as a curtailed contest, India setting a modest target of 33. Japan, ranked 41st in the world and never having reached T20 World Cup qualifying, fell short by three runs, with batter Alexander Shirai-Patmore unable to force the last boundary.

Getting India to Sano at all took a run of coincidences: politicians, cricket administrators, a Sri Lankan groundsman and volunteers working through the night with sponges to dry a pitch on the grounds of a disused high school, in a city better known for its ramen restaurants than for cricket.

Naoki Alex Miyaji, chief executive of the Japan Cricket Association, saw his opening when cricket was added to the 2026 Asian Games, which opened this month in Aichi-Nagoya.

"Initially I thought the idea of Japan playing India was just a dream," he said. "But the people I sounded out at ICC events were really supportive, although they couldn't promise anything."

Japan's cricket association was founded in 1984, and the Sano International Cricket Ground holds 2,000. The fixture sat inside the Men's T20 World Cup East Asia-Pacific Qualifier, where Japan lead the group with four points from two matches.

It follows our report of 22 September on India's narrow win over Japan in Sano, part of the same tour. A near-miss of this size against the world champions, on a ground built for 2,000 in a city few outside Japanese cricket had heard of, is the kind of result that tends to draw more fixtures rather than fewer.