British merchants at the foreign settlement in Yokohama (a treaty port) challenged sailors on a Royal Navy ship to a game.
The invitation was a ploy to ensure that the merchant community would be protected in the case of an ambush from local samurai, as they had been warned of a planned attack on that date.
[2] For a time, cricket was one of the common sports in Japan's foreign settlements, being played alongside baseball by both American and British expatriates; however, as was taking place in America around the same time, baseball managed to greatly overtake cricket in popularity in Japan by the turn of the 20th century, with first-class cricket's longer playing duration and requirement for a specially prepared playing surface working against it, and American interactions with Japan supporting the rise of baseball as a trans-Pacific pastime.
[7] The headquarters of the Japan Cricket Association (JCA) are in Sano, a city in Tochigi Prefecture, Honshu.
In March 2016, plans were announced to bring the ground up to the standards required to host One Day International (ODI) matches, with the installation of floodlights, the construction of a new pavilion [8] Outside of Sano, the Fujigawa Green Park Cricket Ground in Fuji, Shizuoka Prefecture, hosted the 2004 East Asia-Pacific Cricket Challenge (part of the 2007 World Cup qualifying process), which featured the national teams of Japan, Fiji, Indonesia, and Tonga.