Mai Yanagida moves from softball to cricket in six months

Japan's Mai Yanagida will be one of the players to watch out for at the ICC Women's World Cup Qualifier 2011 which will be held in Dhaka from 14 to 26 November.

Japan is placed in Group B and plays its first match of the tournament on 15 November against hosts Bangladesh.

Yanagida began playing cricket just six months ago, so her rise to playing international cricket for Japan has been pretty rapid, the progression to the national side has even surprised the player herself.

"Before I entered university, I had not heard about cricket, I met the sport by chance. I heard that softball and cricket are alike and cricket in my university is very strong. When I was in high school, I played softball but with limited success within my team. I want to be part of the success of the Japanese women's cricket team," said Yanagida.

The youngster still tries and plays softball. "Yes I am still able to play softball once in a week in a physical education class at my university," admitted Yanagida.

A freshman at university, Yanagida has toured Singapore recently with the Japan national team, "I went to Singpore with the women's national team in September for a pre-world cup qualifier training camp. We also played a few friendly matches there against Singapore. However, this will be my first time playing in an official match," said Yanagida.

Japan is one of the unknown quantities at the event in Dhaka, but Yanagida believes that the team is aware of the strengths of other teams and can cope well with the challenge.

"I know that Japan team has competed against West Indies, Pakistan and Ireland in 2003, and also Bangladesh in 2009 in Asia tournament. I know that all of them are strong. We also played against Pakistan and bangladesh in the Asian Games last year. The girls have reflected after that experience and have spent a lot of time analysing those teams," reckoned Yanagida.

Yanagida believes that Japan has had the perfect build-up for the tournament and that will stand the side in good stead during the event proper.

"We have been practising very hard and have strong beliefs in ourselves and our team mates. We believe that nothing is impossible. In Japan, cricket is not well known, so we understand the importance that we will be playing in the development of the sport by having a successful tour of Bangladesh," concluded Yanagida.

Japan squad:
Ema Kuribayashi (captain), Ayako Iwasaki, Miho Kanno, Fuyuki Kawai, Shizuka Kubota, Shizuka Miyaji, Ayako Nakayama, Kurumi Ota, Yuko Saito, Atsuko Suda, Mariko Yamamoto, Mai Yanagida, Kanae Yanagisawa, Yuka Yoshida.

Notes:

The ICC WWCQ 2011 will be played at four venues in Dhaka, namely Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium, Khanshaheb Osman Ali Stadium, BKSP 2* and BKSP 3.

The teams have been split into two groups and the full schedule can be on the ICC website here.

The two groups are as follows:

Group A
South Africa, Sri Lanka, Netherlands, Zimbabwe, USA.

Group B
West Indies, Pakistan, Ireland, Japan, Bangladesh.

All games start at 0900 local time.

*BKSP is the Bangladesh Krira Shikkha Protishtan (Bangladesh Institute of Sports).

If you are interested in receiving information on the ICC Women's World Cup Qualifier 2011 or wish to attend the event as an accredited member of the media, please contact Lucy Benjamin at lucy.benjamin@icc-cricket.com

For more information on ICC WWCQ 2011 please visit www.icc-cricket.com