NAGOYA: Nisshin mayor Hiroki Kondo was watching the game from the sidelines with Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president PT Usha for company. “We will continue playing cricket here after the Games, he told this daily. “We will have 18 days of cricket here.”
Quite excited to hear, the question was whether it was for a month? “No, no, in a year,” he said, a ready smile on his face. “This is Japan!” Cricket is still an obscure sport. It is considered something similar to baseball and that's how the organisers have sold the game here at the Asian Games. They are not to be blamed.
Naomi and Chisato are from the neighbourhood and have never watched cricket. This is their first experience. Mimi Hirayama is the official announcer at the venue. She is Japanese who lives in England and knows about cricket. So she is the announcer. But her biggest challenge is engaging the audience, an audience that can barely differentiate between bat and ball or pad and helmet.
The volunteers were looking with awe at the flying white projectile whenever Smriti Mandhana was hitting a six without completing a base (a baseball term). After all, India and Sri Lanka were playing the final on a baseball practice ground, which also doubles up as a public park with tennis courts as well as a football ground close by. The pitch was hybrid and the practice wickets were covered with astro turf or artificial grass.
But because they could not practice in the middle, the cricketers were doing their catching practice in the football ground and throw-downs and batting practice on the cricket ground. The only permanent structures here are the toilet and the baseball dugouts. Everything else is all temporary, including the stands on the eastern side.
When Hirayama landed the job as an announcer here, she anticipated the challenge. "I started to watch YouTube videos to know more about the game,” she said just after finishing the medal ceremony. Hirayima also used to watch a lot of Indian cricket matches.
Her job was even more difficult than Harmanpreet Kaur and her gold medal-winning side – India’s first of the Games. She has to announce and interpret the game of cricket and its rules. So how was she doing it? “I was mainly talking about rules, because the Japanese audience is not familiar with this sport,” she said. ”But they are very familiar with baseball. So I'll keep giving them my hints to (help them) understand what's going on. For example, when the batter hits a six, it's like a home run. And when the batter hits a four, it's like a three-base hit or something like that.”
To help the crowd, the organisers also distributed pamphlets about the game in Japanese. Apart from the pamphlets, they also had Hirayima for company throughout Tuesday. When the sun set and the stadium was bathed in moonlight, the only thing in mind was whether the crowd went back with happy. At this level, would those happy memories ignite their passion for the game? Time, as always, will tell.