163 years ago India vs Japan T20I first cricket match in Japan had revolvers behind the stumps

India vs Japan T20I Photo/BCCI In the land of baseball, cricket will score on Tuesday when India and Japan celebrate 75 years of diplomatic ties with the T20 International for the Suzuki Cup at the tiny Sano International Cricket Ground, about 80 km from Tokyo.It is a historic occasion. But neither side is likely to be as tense and restless as those who played the first-ever cricket match in the Land of the Rising Sun in the summer of 1863. In that game, some players had unusual protective equipment: revolvers. The keeper places his piece behind the stumps. The country was guarded by a “small force armed with rifles”.Few cricket matches have been more nerve-wracking.Two British sides, the Navy and the Shore team, the other made up of compatriots in Japan, clashed in the port city of Yokohama. The players were nervous because they were afraid of the attack of the samurai with sharp swords.Details of the strange but true incident came to light in 2012 after the efforts of die-hard amateur British historian Mike Galbraith, who subsequently wrote about it in The Japan Times.While researching sports in Japan, Galbraith noticed the Wisden obituary of British Admiral Sir Harry Rawson. The tribute said he played in Japan’s first cricket match. Further research led to an article in London’s ‘Cricket’ magazine, written by James Campbell Fraser, captain of the Shore Team and former Harrow student.In his article, Galbraith quoted Fraser: “It was quite a new sensation for a wicketkeeper to carry a revolver from wicket to wicket back and forth and put it behind the stumps.Galbraith previously calculated that the match was played towards the end of June. However, he later discovered a naval officer’s journal, which led him to conclude that the game had taken place more than a month earlier.“The evidence shows that the match was played around May 12, 1863,” he said in an emailed response last week.In Japanese history, these were the final years of the shogunate, a period ruled by hereditary military governors. An incident in which a Japanese warlord’s bodyguards killed an English businessman sparked anger and bitterness. All foreigners were asked to leave the country by the end of June 1863.Galbraith said Marines were sent to provide security cover for the emigrants and were stationed on ships. However, there was no samurai attack that day or later.The Navy team won. Fraser’s Shore men ‘licked each other beautifully’.Five years later, the first cricket club in Japan was founded in Yokohama by Scottish tea merchant JP Mollison. But the sport did not take off; baseball did.However, recently cricket is finding its feet. According to the Japan Cricket Association website, there are 7,300 players in the land of the rising sun and about 14,000 participants annually.Japan’s biggest moment in the willow game came when the women’s team won bronze at the 2010 Asian Games.