Two Runs in Sano: Japan Lost the Match but Put India on Trial
Linus tackles things head-on. He takes sides in his analysis and it fits excellently with our editorial policy. No 'maybe's' and 'allegedly' for him, only things in black and white.
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By Linus Garg
First publised on 2026-09-24 06:29:20
About the Author
Linus tackles things head-on. He takes sides in his analysis and it fits excellently with our editorial policy. No 'maybe's' and 'allegedly' for him, only things in black and white.
View all posts by this Author
Verdict: India won the one-off T20I against Japan by two runs, but the scoreboard flatters them. A side that defends 32 in five overs has escaped a contest, not controlled one. Japan lost the match and won the argument.
The game at the Sano International Cricket Ground near Tokyo was cut to five overs a side because of a wet outfield, and the start was delayed by more than two and a half hours. It was the first men's T20I between the two nations, staged as part of the Sport 75 initiative marking 75 years of diplomatic relations. India arrived as reigning world champions. They had just won back-to-back series 3-0 against Zimbabwe and Afghanistan. The script favoured them heavily.
Japan tore it up with spin. India, who chose to bat, were tied down immediately by an all-spin attack and slumped to 14/3. Captain Shreyas Iyer made 16 off 12 balls, the top score, and India finished on 32/4. The leader of the attack was a 17-year-old, Charlie Hara-Hinze, who took 2/17 and removed the destructive opener Abhishek Sharma. A teenager took the wicket of one of India's most feared hitters. That fact alone should trouble the Indian dressing room.
The chase was not a formality. Japan were 8/2 after two overs, then took 17 off the next two to stay in the contest. Captain Kendel Kadowaki-Fleming attacked Ravi Bishnoi in the third over, which went for 10 and included a scooped boundary. Washington Sundar removed him off the last ball of the fourth over, leaving Japan needing eight from the final six balls. Washington finished with 2/13, and it was his strike that kept India alive.
The last over produced the controversy. Left-hander Alexander Shirai-Patmore was attempting to reverse-sweep Axar Patel when the umpire signalled a wide down the leg side. The umpire kept calling leg-side wides while the batter changed his stance, and the New Zealander Chris Brown, at square leg, called his colleague over and had one of the two wides overturned. India had disputed the call, and the reversal changed the equation from five off four to six off three. It came with no decision review system in place. The reported reasoning is that a batter who moves loses the protection of a wide. The corrected call therefore appears sound on the playing conditions. The process is the problem. A decision changed under pressure by conversation, not by a review framework, invites the very suspicion this match did not need.
Axar closed the game with figures of 2-0-7-0, and India set a record for the smallest total successfully defended in a five-over T20. That record cuts both ways. It credits the Indian bowlers, but it also measures how far the batting fell short. The pitch was moist and the outfield extremely slow, so conditions were hostile to stroke-making.
The defence deserves a hearing, and it should be stated fairly. Five-over cricket is a lottery, and one collapse or one lucky over can decide it. India also rested Jasprit Bumrah. Japan's opponents should not read a two-run result as a sign of parity.
Still, the record stands on the page. India now head to the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya to defend their gold medal. They will do so knowing that Japan, in the shortest T20 international the format allows, took them to the final ball.
