Bishnoi cuts through Japan

Bloemfontein, January 21

Defending champions India outclassed debutants Japan by 10 wickets in their second match to secure a spot in the Super League quarterfinals of the ICC U-19 World Cup here today.

Opting to field first, four-time champions India bowled out a hapless Japan for 41 runs in 22.5 overs with leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi taking four wickets. It was the joint second lowest total by a team in the U-19 World Cup and joint third lowest in the U-19 cricket history. Pacers Kartik Tyagi and Akash Singh shared five wickets among themselves as none of the Japanese batsmen entered double digits.

India needed just 4.5 overs to complete the formalities, with Yashasvi Jaiswal and Kumar Kushagra remaining unbeaten on 29 and 13, respectively.

India play their final league game against New Zealand on Friday.

‘Very happy’

The game on Tuesday was a complete mismatch, with Japan playing a major ICC event for the first time.

India captain Priyam Garg, however, said his fast bowlers could have done a better job. “Very happy with the performance. The spinners were good, but the lines and lengths could have been better from the pacers. There’s no pressure as such. We want to do well, we take every game as it comes,” said Garg.

Japan captain Marcus Thurgate said the team will head back home a lot richer in experience. “I knew it was going to be a really tough game. We didn’t do our best, especially with the bat. We could have done better. We learnt a lot. We can go to Japan and say that we’ve played against some of the big guys,” he said. “We’ll take a lot of positives from this game. We need to learn from our mistakes and keep getting better.”

Bangladesh win

Bangladesh are on the cusp of joining the defending champions in the Super League after a comfortable seven-wicket victory over Scotland for their second win of Group C. Their place in the next stage would be confirmed if Pakistan beat Zimbabwe on Wednesday — a result which would also see Pakistan progress. — PTI

Japan, Made in the World

The core of the Japanese team comprises players of English and Indian heritage. At the qualifiers for the U-19 World Cup, Japan had beaten Vanuatu, Samoa and Fiji comfortably. Japan has started to focus on cricket because cricket could be considered for inclusion in the Olympic Games some time in the future. In 2012, the Japan Cricket Association (JCA) made a 20-year programme to make cricket popular in the country. Cricket is a newcomer in Japan, and the sport is more popular among the expats from south Asia and UK. JCA CEO is Naoki Alex Miyaji, whose father is Japanese and mother Scottish, and head of operations is Alan Curr. A senior player is Neel Date, who is of Indian heritage, and there are ‘foreign’ names in the squad, such as Marcus Thurgate, Tushar Chaturvedi, Maximillian Clements, Ishaan Fartyal, Leon Mehlig, Yugandhar Retharekar, Debashish Sahoo and Ashley Thurgate. The ethnic Japanese players are Kento Dobell, Sora Ichiki, Masato Morita, Shu Noguchi, Reiji Suto, and Kazumasa Takahashi.