Japan

Kendel Kadowaki-Fleming opens the innings: the captain shares the record for the highest opening partnership in men's Twenty20 Internationals, 258 runs alongside Lachlan Yamamoto-Lake, and stands as the side's leading run-scorer.

The Japan Cricket Association was set up in 1984, and the national team spent its early years struggling to be noticed at all, losing every match at its international debut in Malaysia in September 1996. Promotion to affiliate status with the International Cricket Council in 1989, then a run to the ICC EAP Cricket Cup in Vanuatu in 2005, where Japan beat the Cook Islands by six runs in the final. That win, the team's first major title, pushed it up to Associate status. Two years later Japan went five-for-five at the ICC EAP Cricket Trophy in Auckland, taking that title too and a place in the World Cricket League.

The 2018 East Asia Cup brought a heavy win over Hong Kong, by 96 runs, with Tsuyoshi Takada taking four wickets for 13. Japan's first Twenty20 International followed in 2022, against Indonesia at the Sano International Cricket Ground, the 2,000-capacity home ground in Tochigi Prefecture where the side now plays in navy and white.

That EAP focus has kept producing results: a Sub-Regional Qualifier title in 2022, then a runners-up finish behind Papua New Guinea the following year. Underneath it, the Cricket Blast programme has started feeding players through, among them Marcus Thurgate and Kazumasa Takahashi.