Cricket lovers in Japan gets a new address for their passion !

“Never seen a Night Championship of this scale in Japan”, “It feels like we are playing in India” or “This our first time to play cricket under floodlights in Japan” or “It’s a great event with more than 250+ people here making this event a unique opportunity for Indians in Japan” were the words by Players, Captains and viewers who become a part of this unique event.

Japan Night Cricket Championship is the first ever full flood light championship played with hard tennis ball organized by Tokyo Falcons Cricket club and presented by Nirvanam.

On 3rd and 4th November, the championship started with 12 teams which will be always counted as the very first ones which participated in the unique T6, flood Light format of cricket in Japan. These teams were not only just from Tokyo area but also traveled all the way from Nagoya, Shizuoka and other parts of Japan. Teams as far as Sapporo approached at the time of enrolling their teams for the tournament.

There was forecast of rain for first day but luckily the tournament manage to wrap up all League matches for the day one just in time.
Tally Before the second day began

Second day started with quarter finals which resulted in 4 semi finalists as MCC, Friends XI, Rangeeley Sher and Tokyo Titans Yellow.

Rangeeley Sher and Tokyo Titans clashed for position 3 in which Rangeeley Sher came as victor.

The thrilling finals was between MCC and Friends XI, which ended in a nail biting one run victory on the last boll. In the end MCC emerged as a winner with captain Ashutosh Sathe humbly expressing “We never thought we will win the championship and were just aiming for Top 4” to begin with.

Final Teams Tally stood like as here
Semi Finals & Finals Results !

The second match in Round 6 was for 3rd position

Here are the glimpses of MCC victory.

WINNERS:

Apart from Man of the matches for each game Following awards were presented for the whole series !

1. Winners: Myoden CC (Champions) – 1,00,000 Yens

2. Runner-up: Friends Xi (Close 2nd) – 50,000 Yens

3. 3rd Place: Rangeeley Sher (Close 3rd) – 30,000 Yens

4. Most Valuable Player Abhishek Telang, MCC – 10, 000 Yens

5. Best Batsmen: Rahul Koul, Rangeeley Sher (Strike Rate of 262.50, score a total of 126 runs in tournament) – 10, 000 Yens

6. Best Bowler: Vishnu Shekhawat, Friends XI (Economy of 5 Runs/over, took 9 wickets in tournament) – 10, 000 Yens

7) All man of the matches for each game received 2,000 Yens

Tochigi which is 100 Kms from Japan has been a cricket hub in Japan from quite some time, but running a full fledged night tournament on such a big scale in the Edogawa-Ku, Tokyo ground was received with a pleasant surprise and praises for the organizers Tokyo Falcons Cricket Club along with their sponsors and partners Nirvanam(Raj Group), Skillhouse Staffing Service KK, Vizitech Solutions, Tokyo MithaiWala & IndoJapanPulse.

The teams already wanted one more championship soon and asked to have at least two tournaments in a year.

These were the words by prime title sponsor Nirvanam’s President Anil Raj on relaying it back to India’s scale of tournaments & how he felt younger seeing the matches around him

& Skillhouse’s Pranjal Thapliyal & Jarick Lee on
Coordination, teamwork and discipline during this tournament

Here is the glimpse of what Captains and Fans has to say

If you heard the voices of captions, the fans and the sponsors, it’s not an overstatement to say that this part of Tokyo can be considered as a “new address of Cricket in Japan and players who are passionate about this sport”