Cricket season is well and truly under way and India will be in the thick of things as they prepare to field almost their entire roster of top level talent over the coming weeks.
Tuesday will mark a historic day as Japan, ranked 41st in the world out of 93 teams with any rating points, host double T20 world champions India.
India, who recently slipped behind England to second spot in the ICC rankings, have picked a full-strength team that will look to defend its gold medal at the Asian Games. Ahead of their opening match at the Aichi-Nagoya Games on Monday, the Indian team will play a one-off match against Associate side Japan at the Sano International Cricket Ground to get the players accustomed to the conditions.
The historic Suzuki Cup – the first international match between the nations – will take place at a makeshift venue in Sano. Soil from Sano has been used for the main cricket stadium which will stage games in Nagoya.
Temporary seating in Sano has increased the venue capacity to around 2,000. It will be a day to remember for Japan’s cricket community; no two teams with a bigger gap in rankings have played a bilateral international before.
"I can't wait to just get out there, take on the challenge and I'm really looking forward to it," Japan all-rounder Benjamin Ito-Davis told ICC Digital.
"To represent Japan on the global stage and promote cricket in Japan is something I'm really honoured and proud to do.
"As a team we want to show that we can compete against a team like India and show that Japan spirit, the Japan way, but also play in a fair and respectful way."
For India, the match will mark the beginning of a particularly busy month. This weekend will see the West Indies begin a white-ball tour of India which will include ODIs and T20s, while the main national team will be busy competing at the Asian Games in Japan.
Simultaneously, other top level Indian players will face a strong Australian team during an A team series at home, which will include one-day and multi-day games. That series also begins on Tuesday. The remainder of the talent pool (Rest of India team) will play against domestic first-class champions (Jammu & Kashmir) next week.
In all, 69 players will play for five senior level Indian representative teams across formats and competitions.
On Monday, India’s training session for their first-ever T20 against Japan got cancelled due to rain and stormy conditions brought upon by Typhoon Dujuan, which has also impacted certain events at the ongoing Asian Games.
India recently swept Afghanistan 3-0 at home. The team management will once again have to take a call on whether to continue keeping teen batting sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi on the bench.
Indian T20 team for Japan: Shreyas Iyer (captain), Tilak Varma (vice-captain), Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Yash Thakur, Vipraj Nigam.
Japan: Kendel Kadowaki-Fleming (captain), Charlie Hara-Hinze, Benjamin Ito-Davis, Alester Kadowaki-Fleming, Kohei Kubota, Jake Kusuda-Nairn, Wataru Miyauchi (wk), Reo Sakurano-Thomas, Alex Shirai-Patmore (wk), Shoma Sugaya-Slater, Declan Suzuki-McComb, Tsuyoshi Takada, Ibrahim Takahashi, Makoto Taniyama, Lachlan Yamamoto-Lake.
Note: Match begins 8am UAE time. Fans in UAE can watch the match live on Japan Cricket's YouTube channel.
