Hope for the future
Today’s Japan’s opponent is Papua New Guinea, which we played against three days ago.
Japan, which had been a batting-first strategy in the last two matches, will return to Fielding-first in this match. It is expected that the team will concede as few runs as possible against the Papua New Guinea batting lineup, which boasts strong hits, and then enter the batting session.
If there’s one play that Japan has the most regrets throughout this match, it would be the first pitch to fall. Baller captain Ota Kurumi went to catch the ball that Jimmy had launched, but dropped it in a short time. Cricket has a proverb “catches win matches,” but if the captain had caught the ball, the match could have been a completely different story.
Japan ended up stolen 155 runs in 20 overs. This is the highest score ever in the tournament. After opening batsmen Jimmy and Ruma were out, No. 4 Oala and No. 6 Tau continued to bat offensively, and scored without slowing down the pace. Japan’s seven bowlers pitched well, but a number of goals were conceded due to a series of defensive mistakes.
After a 20-minute interval, Japan’s batting begins. In this match, Shiraishi Madoka served as Ota’s opening partner in place of Miyaji Shizuka. Japan’s inexperienced batting was particularly reluctant in the matches since the tournament began, but today it was different when a large number of goals were required to score to win, and the team was forced to stand on the edge of the ring. Both Ota and Shiraishi were out early on, but they were able to see an aggressive approach to hitting the ball. Ota’s cover drive, where he scored a four-run home run, may be his best shot in this game.
In a game with a Twenty 20 pitch limit, no matter how much they get at, they have to aim for a win. Japan didn’t use up all the 20 overs and was taken out of the final wicket on the second pitch of 14 overs, but his willingness to hit the ball was impressive. In particular, Kobayashi Etsuko, who appeared as batter 8 in the final stages, showed off three consecutive pitches from MVP Jimmy, who took the four run.
As a result, Japan lost by a much larger margin than its first match. However, it was undoubtedly a day that showed a much better performance than the previous match, giving us a sense of hope for the future.
Sometimes the numbers on the scorecard don’t even convey half of the content of the match. I hope that the aggressiveness they showed in today’s match will be shown in tomorrow’s match against Vanuatu, the final match of the tournament.
