Cricket in Taiwan goes international this weekend with the arrival of a team from Japan for three days of thrills and spills with bat and ball.
Hokkaido Cricket Club (HCC), a team made up of expat players residing on the northern Japanese island, are scheduled to arrive today to take part in an invitational game tomorrow in Taipei before traveling to Taichung for a two-day, eight-team tournament.
The arrival of HCC marks the first time in more than 20 years that a foreign team has visited Taiwan to take part in a cricket tournament.
INVITATIONAL MATCH
The Pakistan Cricket Club Taiwan (PCCT) will represent Taiwan against the tourists in the invitational match.
The action will start at 9am at the Shezi Baseball Ground (社子島棒/壘球場) off Tonghe W Street, Sec 2 (通河西街二段) beside the Tamsui River and will last through 5pm.
The format of the game has yet to be decided.
After the invitational game concludes the teams will make their way down to Taichung in preparation for the Jan Hong Annual Tournament on Saturday and Sunday.
SWINGERS
The eight-team competition will see Hokkaido pit their skills against the very best of Taiwan’s cricketing talent, including PCCT, Taiwan Southerners, Formosa Cricket Club, Tainan Swingers, Taipei Cricket Association, Kings Eleven, and tournament organizers the Pakistan Badshahs.
Played in the Twenty-20 format, the teams will form two groups for round robin play on Saturday before the top two teams from each group do battle in the semi-finals starting on Sunday at 10am.
ROUND ROBIN GAMES
The round robin games will take place at the Wanshou Baseball ground (萬壽棒球場 大墩路329號) and another ground on Yinghua and Luoyang Road (櫻花路和洛陽路) while Sunday’s semi-finals and the deciding game will be played at the Wanshou ground.
Cricket fans in the area are welcome to come along and enjoy what promises to be an action-packed weekend with plenty of sun, seam and sixes, organizers said.
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