It's as English as dancing round a Maypole on the village green. But, wedged between a rugby pitch and fields full of practicing Little Leaguers, the University of Tokyo Cricket Club and their counterparts across town from Chuo are doing their best to put this most civilized of pastimes on Japan's sporting map.
They've got an uphill task. Although it's the second most popular sport on Earth by following, with a billion fans worldwide and hosts of teams throughout the British Commonwealth from Australia to Zimbabwe, the 500-year-old game of cricket barely registers in Japan.
Here, there are around 62 senior men's teams and 12 women's teams, amounting to only 1,200 senior amateur players in total — that's one cricketer for every 100,000 citizens in Japan. Twenty-five of those men's clubs, including about a dozen university teams, are made up of Japanese players; the rest are comprised predominately of foreigners — Indians, Pakistanis, Brits, Kiwis . . .
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