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The story
India’s national cricket team will compete at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games. The venue is normally used as a baseball stadium, but its turf has been relaid for this tournament, and it will be converted back into a baseball field once the games are over. Matches will use the “T20” format, which wraps up in just a few hours. India’s top players reportedly earn more than ¥2.5 billion (about $17 million) a year, and the sport boasts one of the largest fan bases and player pools in the world — yet it remains little known in Japan. The thread debated the reality behind this “lopsided popularity,” as well as whether it was appropriate for the article to invoke Shohei Ohtani’s name.
Cricket’s answer to “Mr. Ohtani” is coming to Japan. India’s national team — stars who earn massive salaries and fame in their domestic league back home — will appear at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.
It’s undeniably a minor sport in Japan, but globally it’s actually the second most popular sport after soccer. The Indian community in the Tokai region, along with cricket insiders, are eagerly awaiting the arrival of this “galáctico squad.” (By Keigo Okumura)
“I can’t believe a global superstar is actually coming here,” “Indians all over Japan are probably too excited to sleep.” At an Indian restaurant in Hamamatsu’s Naka Ward, members of the local cricket team “Hamamatsu Hunters” were already making plans to watch the matches.
Source: chunichi.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
That's sepak takraw you're thinking of.
That's Mirai Hoshizaki.
Speaking of which, an actor named Vijay recently became a state governor. Same with Rajinikanth — feels like a lot of Indian actors, especially in the south, end up going into politics.
>For the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, they're using the "T20 (Twenty20)" format — about 3 hours per match — which is becoming the global standard.
They built one just for the Asian Games, I think. But normally it's just a baseball field.
Football has players spread out pretty evenly across the whole world though.
So it's a sport that can double up on a baseball field. I was amazed once seeing that huge cricket stadium in Australia, but apparently some cricket grounds in India hold 130,000 people — that's on another level.
The cricket venue for this Asian Games was originally a baseball field (used for youth baseball, etc.), and they redid the turf and made other renovations so it could host cricket. Once it's over there's no demand for cricket anyway, so it just goes back to being a baseball field — it even still has the backstop.
Outside South Asia, it's popular in Britain itself and other former British territories, including parts of Oceania.
That's rugby you're describing.
Also East Africa, Southern Africa, and the Caribbean.
What stings is thinking baseball isn't the same way. Really shows how, for most people, domestic media ends up feeling like the whole world.
Isn't its market value way too low for something this popular?
Top cricket salaries:
1. ¥2.5 billion — Virat Kohli (India)
2. ¥2.3 billion — Mahendra Singh Dhoni (India)
3. ¥800 million — Chris Gayle (Jamaica)
4. ¥680 million — Abraham Benjamin de Villiers (South Africa)
5. ¥580 million — David Warner (Australia)
Because most of the fans are in India and Pakistan.
The IPL alone pulls in ¥200 billion in revenue across just 10 teams.
They're just using his name because it gets clicks.
Without Ohtani's name in there, nobody would even look at the article.
They've been doing this forever — asking athletes from completely different sports about Ohtani. "Do you know Mr. Ohtani?" "What do you think of him? Amazing, right?" No wonder the haters keep piling up.
Huh? Going by number of players, isn't cricket bigger than table tennis?
I get that. Watching the match footage, the energy level feels about on par with elementary school kickball (lol).
Baseball is a spinoff of cricket. And Japanese "yakyu" is baseball's not-quite-the-same cousin.
He's not actually coming to Japan though.
Rugby has spread somewhat even outside former British territories — France, Argentina, and so on. Cricket is extremely skewed toward former British colonies, especially popular around India.
Honestly, soccer's the weird one. Born in Britain, and somehow it spread across the entire world.
Actually, I think there was one — like an Indian version of "Star of the Giants," but with cricket?
They're too busy for this anyway. Pretty much everyone competing at the Asian Games is second-string.
Is there even a sport that sends its first-stringers to the Asian Games? Pretty much every sport sends its B-team or younger players.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Cricket is often billed as having the “second-largest fan base in the world,” but that’s largely a function of the sheer population of the Indian subcontinent, and its reach is concentrated in former British territories — a very different profile from soccer’s truly global spread. The venue for the Nagoya Asian Games isn’t a dedicated cricket facility either; it’s a baseball field that was renovated just for this tournament and will have its turf reverted afterward — a purely temporary arrangement. Where the thread split was over the headline’s use of Shohei Ohtani’s name. Given lingering irritation over reporters constantly asking athletes from unrelated sports for their thoughts on Ohtani, many commenters gave this article’s angle a cold “they’re just borrowing his name” reaction. At the same time, the sheer scale of cricket’s salaries and player base was met with genuine surprise.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5channel (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[Cricket] More Popular Than Shohei Ohtani!? Galáctico Squad India National Team Comes to Japan for the Asian Games.”
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