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India to Play Japan in Cricket's First Senior T20I at Sano

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India, the reigning T20I world champions, face Japan in Sano on September 22 - the country's first men's senior international against a Full Member.

India, the reigning Twenty20 world champions and the top-ranked side in the format, are scheduled to face Japan at Sano on September 22, the country's first men's senior international against a Full Member nation. The match, weather permitting, will be broadcast live on FanCode at 9:30 am IST.

For the Japan Cricket Association, staging the fixture is already the achievement. "A lot of success has almost already happened," said Alan Curr, the JCA's chief operating officer, pointing to India's agreement to travel and the sudden interest from Japanese reporters covering the sport for the first time. He has spent the days before the game switching between jobs - clearing the covers off the wicket on a Sunday morning as a typhoon approached, pitching hospitality tents, reviewing security arrangements and turning a modest ground with 500 permanent seats into a venue fit for the world champions.

Cricket is not new to the country. It arrived in the 1870s but never took hold against baseball, football, sumo, basketball, golf, tennis and boxing, all of which command far larger followings. Japan has appeared at Under-19 World Cups, met India and Pakistan at youth level and sent its women's team to the Asian Games, yet a senior men's game against a side of India's stature is without precedent.

"It certainly helps to say that the reigning world champions, the No. 1 ranked team in the world, are coming to Japan," Curr said. "It's piquing interest, but we've still got a long way to go before cricket breaks into the mainstream sporting audience."

From clay to a fixture

The match was never part of any long-term blueprint. It started roughly 18 months ago, when the JCA decided to rebuild the turf square at Sano and brought in a groundsman from Sri Lanka Cricket to find the right clay. That same surface was later used to construct the Asian Games venue in Nagoya, which raised an obvious question: if Japan now had international-standard pitches, why not offer them to the best teams in the world?

Once the surfaces were finished in March, the association drew up a proposal and circulated it to every Full Member before the ICC conference in Edinburgh. Talks with the BCCI opened there and, to Curr's surprise, progressed at speed. "The BCCI were really keen to have an opportunity to train," he said. "It's huge credit to them that they're excited about coming here and building this relationship with the JCA."

The scheduling worked in Japan's favour. Cricket returns to the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya only days after the Sano game, and India's men would otherwise have faced nearly a week's wait for their knockout tie with no proper facilities to prepare on. Sano gave them both a training base and, eventually, an opponent.

Steady numbers behind the scenes

The headline fixture sits on top of years of slower expansion. Registered players have climbed from around 3,000 when Curr took up his post in 2014 to 8,800 today. The Japan Cup, the domestic T20 competition, has grown from little more than a dozen teams to over 80, and the 40-over league now runs across four divisions.

"Kaizen is the word," Curr said, invoking the Japanese principle of continual improvement. "That's what we're trying to do for the sport. But now and again there are moments like this where you can accelerate that."

He expects the return of cricket to the Asian Games to help, because it places the game inside an event Japanese audiences already recognise. "The Asian Games gives cricket legitimacy that it didn't have before," he said. "You can't be what you can't see."

A cultural test, not a scoreline

Curr is candid about the gulf on the field. "This India team is pretty good," he said. "It's going to be an extremely difficult challenge for players who have never played at that level before." His measure of success lies elsewhere. He cites Japan's women's team, praised for remaining on the field after their Asian Games match against India to thank the crowd and meet supporters, and wants the men to project the same character.

"We want cricket to be played hard but also be accessible and friendly," he said. "We want cricket to be fun." If the first-time spectators who fill Sano leave with more than memories of India's star names, the JCA will consider the day a win - whatever the result.

Japan cricket, India T20I Japan, Sano cricket ground, Japan Cricket Association, Alan Curr, Asian Games cricket, FanCode India Japan, BCCI Japan tour

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