Japan: Gunma and Kanto Cups underway

'Beyond The Test World' is pleased to introduce a twin attack for its coverage of the 2000 Japanese season.

Covering the Gunma Cup will be arguably Japan's most well known Japanese-born player and national team member, Hirokazu Takahashi, or 'Junior', as he is generally referred as.

Junior will provide regular updates on the Gunma Cup, the competition reserved exclusively for indigenous players.

Biju Paul is known throughout Japanese cricket circles for his involvement in Japan's main expatriate competition, the Kanto Cup. Biju will also keep readers informed on happenings within Japan's expat cricket community.

For their first contributions, 'Junior' and Biju have provided brief introductions to their respective competitions as well as match results of the few games played so far.

"The Gunma Cup has six teams, Far East CC (my team), Tokyo Bay CC, Max CC, Adolescent CC, Millennium CC and Wyverns CC," writes 'Junior'.

"These six 'club teams' are mainly experienced players. The teams play in a round robin format and the first place team goes into the Grand Final against the first placed team from the University League.

"The University league includes Keio University CC, Sensyu University CC, Chuo University CC and Tokyo Engineering University CC.

Results so far: (University league has not started)

Round 2
5/13-14: Wyverns v Millennium - MI Wins; Bonus Points - MI:10/WY:0
5/20-21: Tokoy Bay v Max - Draw; B.Pts - Max:6/TB:2
5/27-28: Far East v Adolescent - FE Wins; B.Pts - FE:6/AD:4

Round 1
4/15-16: Wyverns v Tokyo Bay - Draw; B.Pts - TB:6/WY:2
4/22-23: Millennium v Far East MI Wins; B.Pts - MI:10/FE:0
Max v Adolescent postponed

And now, it's over to Biju Paul for his report on the Kanto Cup:

"The single most difficulty in keeping cricket going in Japan is the lack of grounds. The awareness, or the lack of it, also constitute a barrier in this base ball crazy country. With all these difficulties including the language barrier, however, one will find it difficult to believe that cricket has a decently large following among the youngsters, especially, the university students. There is even women's cricket competetion in Japan! It's a pretty good sight that the locals stop by to watch a different game that looks something like "baseball" and the players explain it to them as "krikato"(Cricket in Japanese). I guess, my friend Junior Takahashi will be covering the Japanese Cricket in detail while I concentrate on the expat side of it.

First, the Kanto Cup tournament, the only competetion in the Kanto area of Japan which is basically Tokyo and the surrounding areas. This tournament was started in 1996 by the expats in Japan and into its fourth succesful year now. The tournament format and rules have undergone drastic changes over the years. You can find about the rules, regulations and results of this tournament in the websites: https://www3.ewebcity.com/iecc/ or https://www.japan-cricket.com/.

Many matches have been washed out, but they have been rescheduled. One feature of this tournament is that matches will be rescheduled once and only once in order to finish it by end of the season. What this means is that if a match is washed out second time, then the teams share the points. This tournament normally lasts the whole season as matches are being played only on the weekends and there are only 4 grounds available for Cricket in the Kanto area which is also shared for other sports.

Japanese season starts in March/April and ends by September/October although games are played even bitter winter by the cricket crazy expats. This year a total of ten teams including an all Japanese team, which roughly constitutes their national team, have been enrolled for the competition, in two groups. Sadly, last year's champions, The Sri Lankan Lions, decided not to take part in this year's tournament. Friends XI CC, largely a Pakitani expat team, has become the first team to qualify for the quarter finals so far, having beaten Fuji CC and Lalazar CC, convincingly. Make no mistake, all matches are of 40 overs! Brief cores of the two matches they played so far:

Friends CC - 277/7 (Munir Ahmed 120*, Mark Brown 8-0-35-4)
Fuji CC - 90 all out in 17.2 overs (Mark Brown 49, Jamshed Ali 8-0-44-6)

Friends CC - 193 all out in 35.4 overs(Aamir Ali 49, Aamir Rana 8-0-21-3,M. Aslam 6.4-0-30-3)
Lalazar CC - 90 all out in 18 overs(Mark Brown 49, Jamshed Ali 8-0-44-6)

The teams:
Group A - Indian Engineers, Japan Selection, Shizuoka Kytes, Tokyo Giants, Yokohama County & Athletic Club
Group B - British Embassy, Edogawa Falcons, Friends XI, Fuji Lalazar Sports

Right now, there are two web sites that provide reasonably good information about cricket in Japan:
https://www.japan-cricket.com/
https://www3.ewebcity.com/iecc/

These sites publish almost all the tournaments and match reports.