While Japan is now home to an estimated 3,000 players and 200 teams, with the game no longer a sporting curio, the idea that the country could one day compete in a major international tournament no longer sounds as preposterous as it would have done just a few years ago, the Guardian reported.
In November, the Sano ground - the first dedicated cricket pitch in Japan to meet international standards - will host Japan, China, South Korea and the Chinese Dragons from Hong Kong in the first ever East Asia Cup.
"The gap in ability in international tournaments used to be huge," Miyaji, 37, said. "We didn't have what it took to build an innings. If we batted first we were lucky to make it through to lunch," he was quoted as saying by the British paper.
Miyaji, whose mother is Scottish, fell in love with cricket during childhood summer holidays spent in the UK, before taking it up at Keio university in Tokyo and going on to make his debut for Japan in 2000.
More From This Section
Japan's 33-year-old captain, Masaomi Kobayashi, had not witnessed a single over of cricket until curiosity prompted him to start playing at university.
"This is a young side, so we have a lot to look forward to," said Kobayashi. "Our immediate aim is to become one of the top three or four teams in the region.
British merchants and Royal Navy officers played a friendly match on a grassless patch of land in Yokohama. Over the next 150 years, Japan developed a passion for baseball through commercial and diplomatic contact with the US. Cricket was limited to occasional matches between expat communities in Yokohama and another port city, Kobe.
Cricket did not register in Japan's sporting firmament until the early 1980s, when inquisitive Japanese university students teamed up with foreign students to form an amateur league.
The formation of the national team in 1986 was the catalyst for a dramatic improvement in the game's fortunes in a country where many people still confuse cricket with croquet. In 2000, the national team reached a milestone of sorts when they scored 100 runs for the first time in a 50- over match.
Kanto, where Sano is located, is considered the sport's spiritual home, with five pitches and plans for the international ground to host 180 matches by the end of the year.
Coaches from Australia now visit several times a year to teach children of all ages attending more than half of Sano's 28 schools.
"This is a renewal phase for the Japanese team," said Chris Thurgate, an Australian and a board member of the Japan cricket association.