00:10 John Daub: So this is Sano City in Tochigi Prefecture, and today is the Curry Cricket Festival. And the pink team is Japan and the yellow team is from India. And they're having an exhibition match today on a beautiful sunny day in Tochigi. This is about two hours driving from the center of Tokyo. You can get here in 90 minutes if you go faster. But hey, everybody, I'm in the stands and I'm watching this cricket match. It's not a very long one. It's going on for just about a few hours.

00:48 Cricket matches notoriously can go on for like hours and seem like decades, especially to an American who doesn't know much about the rules. But my mother is originally from India and I've played cricket in villages and it's sort of fun, but I still don't know the rules. But pretty cool to be here anyways. And one of the reasons why we're in Sano City, I'm going to ask the organizer on his thoughts or the reasoning why, and that's from the Japan Cricket Association, and I'm going to talk with him just in a little bit.

01:10 But I wanted to show you from the stands some of the cricket competition going on here. The audience isn't really big. You can see the audience is watching here. It's not really big because the national sport of Japan probably is sumo and baseball and baseball is a sport from the United States and cricket comes from the United Kingdom, from England, and it's not really taking root here. But that doesn't mean that we still don't play. And there is a population from South Asia that plays cricket regularly and they need a place to play. Tokyo is hard to find a field. And if you come out here to Sano, you have this.

02:07 I mean, look how beautiful and scenic. You have mountains in the background and an entire green area to play. This is very cool. So I want to show one more bowler and one more striker and I'm going to go down. I don't know the terms. I'm not even going to pretend to be a cricket caller. I don't even know if they whisper like they do in golf. Apparently not, because the announcers here in Japan have on the loudspeaker. And you can see the Japan team is sitting there on the track. A team of 11. The 11 Indian team are on the field right now. And the two strikers are from the Japan team. So India is in yellow and Japan is in pink right now.

03:09 I really don't know much about the rules. I'm not going to pretend to know. All I know is that it's pretty cool to see new sports popping up. And I want to give you an explanation of why Sano City. Why in Tochigi do they have a curry and cricket festival? It makes no sense in a way, does it? But this is a festival, so here's some food right here. I'm going to show you this curry stand really quickly. They're serving Indian curry. And they're very busy. The line is huge for this. But they have some, I guess that looks like tandoori chicken cooking on the grill. And then there's some other kebabs, things on sticks. Beautiful big naan.

04:23 It doesn't just look good, it smells good. It's too bad you don't have smell of vision where you are because, oh, man, it's just like a smell of curry and frying, grilling chicken. Oh, man, it's so good. And this is Mr. Khan's shop and he has really good butter chicken. And I had a mango lassi. And you could see the curry from there in the stream before this. So I'm doing three or four streams today. This is the third one.

04:58 Believe it or not, the first stream that I did introduced this area in the event, which is pretty neat. Sorry, we have. We had Sanomaru, which is the mascot of this area. Sanomaru has a big ramen bowl on his head. And although ramen is the food of this area, I have to tell you, curry is a pretty close second because in that tent, the blue tent is one of the big Japanese curry makers' factories is right here. All right, I'm gonna go inside. I happen to have a press pass, so I'm gonna go inside and try to get some behind the scene footage. Here we go. Why am I whispering again?

05:43 All right, I got access. Oh, this is so cool. All right, I'm on the field. Check it out.

06:26 So I'm gonna try to go over and find Alex. Alex is in charge of the Japan Cricket Association, and I want to find out more about why they're here in Sano City. I think I saw him over here. I don't know if this is anything like baseball where a foul ball can just strike you in the head at any moment. I'm certainly home.

07:13 So that's Alex in there. He's in charge of the. That's the guy with the blue. He's in charge of the Cricket Association of Japan, and I want to try to pin him down and get his thoughts. I'm gonna hang out. He's obviously in a meeting, talking about the growth of cricket in Japan. Music subsides. But until he comes out, I'm gonna show you a little bit about cricket. And I'm gonna bother these announcers, and if I bother them, maybe they'll let me get on the microphone. I would like to get on the microphone and start speaking and let's get ready to rumble. 10 rounds, India versus Japan. I don't think they're gonna let me do it, but if you keep asking a hundred times, it can be so annoying. They might just let me just to get rid of me. And sing. Yeah, Trickerus. You got that right, my friend. Singing. But I'm gonna corner Alex behind me, head of the Japanese Cricket Association.

09:06 I don't know who's winning. There's no scoreboard. They're telling us there's a place to try cricket back there. Okay, everybody, this is the festival. Check it out. Check out that woman with the spoon getting ready to attack the curry. That woman, she's intense. Look at that. Nice. That dude's pretty intense too. It's the curry festival. Sano Cricket Festival. It's pretty tough. And there's actually a link here. There's Sanomaru, the mascot. And there's the Sano City Cricket link. If you want to see more in this event, check it out.

09:24 Hey, Gretchen's here. Hey, Gretchen. Hope you're doing well. Gretchen is from Arizona. This is middle of the night for her. Talking about the speed, the bowler. I like the fact that in cricket, the bowlers do a wind up. Check it out. He's like way back there. Do you see him? That dude, he's a. He's called a bowler, not a pitcher. And the bowler, he's gonna run and chuck the ball real fast. Check it out. This is the Indian team. Do it, dude. Okay. That would be a bulk in America. I'm glad they didn't come this way. That would have stunk.

10:32 Cricket. If you get to learn the rules of cricket, it's actually a really interesting sport. It's a lot of strategy. More. Almost more than baseball in a way. I guess you have to know the strategy in order to play it because hit the cart. There's so many rules. Let's see if we can get another bowl. And for those of you who don't know cricket, this is called a wicket. You see right here, this is a wicket. And if you hit the two knobs on the top of the wicket off, it's an out. I think there's 10 outs to an inning, which is how many batters or strikers there are. They're not called batters, they're called strikers. Let's get back to the bowler. And they go back and forth between the wickets.

11:41 I believe cricket was invented in England. It was invented hundreds of years ago, before baseball, I believe, because I remember reading books, naval books of the ship pilots. So the ship crew would play cricket when they landed on uncharted waters. So they'd be playing in Fiji. That's how cricket got around the Commonwealth because the sailors hundreds of years ago would play cricket with the locals. And that when they played cricket, that was the only time that the locals and the English felt were like equal. Right?

12:04 This is when playing a sport where the local islanders, like, let's say Fiji, they can beat the English and have that pride. And that's sort of bound. I might be speaking out of my mouth, out of my head right now. I'm not sure. But I think that sort of sports really bonds the Commonwealth because athletes are all equal. You don't have any socioeconomic weight problems. Everybody's equal in sports. And that's sort of what is great about the Olympics. But cricket is the same thing. And when India played England in cricket, I believe back in the days, like, you know, 50, 60 years ago, that was sort of big. Or 100 years ago, that was big. And you can play and beat them and not have any repercussions. I guess it's the end of the ending. This is supposed to end really soon. This is supposed to end soon, but I guess not. Or maybe wait, the Indian team's taking the field. Okay. I don't know what happened because there's no scoreboard. I don't even know who's winning. There's a scoreboard over there. It's a scoreboard in the distance. It's hard to see. 52 to 65. Wow. It's like a basketball score.

14:01 Oh, Gretchen's prompted me to eat some more food. She's eating popcorn in bed. She says a lot of people are at it. Let's get closer, says Sri Lankan flyer. I kind of can't. I'm pretty closer than most people. If you can see, here's where I am right now. This is the track and the media is only supposed to go up to a certain point. Even though I have a press pass, I think can I get closer? Can I get closer? Very pretty good minutes. That's Alex.

14:39 John Daub: Okay, so this is Alex. Alex, you're in charge of the cricket in Japan, right?

14:44 Alex (Japan Cricket Association): Yes.

14:44 John Daub: The Japanese Cricket Association.

14:46 Alex: Yes.

14:47 John Daub: Yeah. So I wanted to ask you why. I guess let's come out here in the sunlight a little bit. Thanks for making the time. So why Sano?

14:57 Alex: Sano, that's a long story really, but try and make it short. It's 80 kilometers north of Tokyo. So coming to Sano by car is about an hour and a half.

15:06 John Daub: Right.

15:06 Alex: Train about two hours, not too far. You go to Tokyo, there's no space. So we were looking for somewhere that we could find some grounds to build cricket.

15:15 John Daub: Now, Sano, in that sense, it makes sense. So it's just kind of a coincidence that there's a curry factory nearby and a lot of South Asians living in this area.

15:26 Alex: Yeah, I guess there's more people now here coming to Sano on the weekends to play cricket because there's ground. There's space here.

15:37 John Daub: Is cricket growing here in Japan? I know baseball is the is sort of a pastime here, definitely.

15:44 Alex: I mean, in Sano, like we go into the schools. 5000 kids in Sano play cricket every year. And we've got teams in 10 elementary schools. There's corporate teams building up. So there's about 25 teams in Sano now.

15:59 John Daub: Wow. So Sano is sort of a place where it's growing. It's out of Sano.

16:03 John Daub: Are there any other popular places in Japan?

16:06 Alex: Yeah. So this is our city of cricket strategy, where we started in Sano. Now we've got Akishima in West Tokyo, Sanmu in East Kanto. So that's near the airport. And now Kaizuka in Osaka has put the hand up to be the city of cricket of West Japan.

16:22 John Daub: Interesting.

16:24 John Daub: Now baseball is sort of a national pastime. I always think that a lot of the best athletes are going into the wrong sport. Maybe.

16:31 Alex: Definitely.

16:32 John Daub: I knew you were going to say that. I knew you're going to say definitely.

16:34 Alex: Yeah. They. But now we've got a professional, former professional baseball player trying out cricket. So now we're seeing that maybe baseball players might come to cricket. Something that might be interesting.

16:44 John Daub: I know we could try cricket out here. Have you ever played baseball?

16:49 Alex: Yeah, well, when I was a kid in the park with my friends.

16:52 John Daub: It's totally different, though.

16:54 Alex: It is different, but it's the same building skills. Same like you're hitting a ball that's a similar size as well.

17:01 John Daub: Right.

17:02 Alex: That's flatter. So it's easier to hit. So there are differences, but there are some similarities. So we have had softball players, baseball players try out cricket and successful. So if the top athletes in Japan, the professional baseball players want to try out cricket.

17:17 John Daub: Yeah, you could try out cricket. Right. I would have tried cricket over there in the trout.

17:22 John Daub: Well, thank you very much for making time. Is there anything you want to tell people about cricket in Japan, some of the strategies?

17:28 Alex: I guess one of the key things is that Sano is now building an international standard ground and it wants to attract people from around the world to come and visit Sano, enjoy cricket. So, yeah, if you're out there and thinking about a visit to Japan, come to Sano and come and see the international cricket ground.

17:43 John Daub: Yeah, this is great. I mean, look at the view. We got mountains in the background, this open grass. This is not a view from Tokyo. This is good.

17:52 John Daub: And the teams that are playing today, the team from India, that's not the national team, right?

17:57 Alex: No, they're Indians who live in Japan, mostly in Tokyo area, so they play for different clubs throughout the season. But today we've got them in the India eleven playing against the Japan eleven, which is some national players and some others.

18:11 John Daub: Oh, that's so cool.

18:13 John Daub: Actually, I think I've seen some of these Indian players. I live in Edogawa Ward and they play cricket on the river there. I think I see some familiar faces.

18:23 Alex: You haven't seen some there.

18:25 John Daub: Oh, that's so cool. Are you going to do more events like this in Sano where you're bringing cricket and combining it with food? Food is a pretty good idea.

18:34 Alex: Yeah. Yeah. And we've done UK festivals, UK cricket festivals, and have tea and sort of biscuits and all that as well. But yeah, we definitely like the summer. International Cricket Ground is going to be a great place to host events. Previously it was just a field. Now it's a proper ground and the facilities are going to be great. So hosting events like this hopefully will attract a lot of people to come to summer.

18:55 John Daub: So this is going to be maybe an annual event?

18:58 Alex: Well, more than annual, hopefully, and different sort of events and like in the near future, we'd like India playing against Australia. Yeah, like proper international matches in Sano.

19:07 John Daub: Oh, that'd be cool. Does the US have a cricket team?

19:10 Alex: Yes, they do.

19:11 John Daub: I'm just curious because I'm American. I've never seen the US cricket team.

19:17 Alex: But, you know, they're pretty strong. The fan base in the USA is pretty strong because a lot of people have come from.

19:30 John Daub: Is that a home run?

19:31 Alex: That was four, six.

19:34 John Daub: A four or six?

19:35 Alex: Yes. The Japan 11 have just beaten the India 11.

19:40 John Daub: Oh, wow. Japan beat India.

19:41 Alex: So. Yeah. So India made 65 and Japan 11 have just made 68.

19:46 John Daub: Wow. So that was a big. That was a big deal, that hit.

19:49 Alex: Yeah, that was.

19:51 John Daub: That's what. The crowd's going crazy. The Japan team just beat the Indian team. Very cool.

19:57 John Daub: There's a show of sportsmanship. The players.

20:00 Alex: Now, most of our national team players, Japanese players, have played cricket for a long time now. Until recently, we only had players who had started at university. Now they're starting at elementary school, junior high school. But popular cricket players, right?

20:16 John Daub: Yeah. They're pretty strong, despite the pink uniforms. I'm just saying. I'm just saying.

20:25 Alex: In a few weeks.

20:26 John Daub: All right. Pink. That's a good way to look at it. Sakura pink.

20:32 John Daub: All right. Well, thank you, Alex. Thank you very much. I don't take too much. Thank you. Yeah. Awesome.

20:40 John Daub: That's Alex. He's in charge of the Japan Cricket Association. I have a press pass, so I can go out there and bother the people now. That's what I do. I go out there and I bother people.

20:53 John Daub: All right, here comes the teams. Are they gonna do about to the bow to the fans or something? That'd be pretty cool.

21:04 John Daub: That was good. Let's go see some of the Sakura Pink players. I'm gonna take a picture, I guess. I don't want to be in the background.

21:27 John Daub: Hold your heads up high, folks. You won. And the Indian team, they might not have won this time, but they'll be back and stronger, too. India does not stay down for anybody. Stand up and fight. Search for Virat Kohli. Is he here? Okay. There's a Japan team giving a bow to the crowd. Very good sportsman. Good job. Good job. Japan 11. Why does it always sound like Larry David? Congratulations. And the Indian team, a big bow. Thank you very much. Congratulations to second place out of two. Good job. Good job.

22:52 John Daub: So Virat Kohli is probably not here. I can ask him.

23:02 John Daub: Hey, is Virat Kohli here? Yeah.

23:06 Indian Community Organizer: You want to find.

23:07 John Daub: Yeah. People are asking for Virat Kohli.

23:10 Indian Community Organizer: So just inform that he is with Anushka at this point.

23:13 John Daub: Okay. Okay. Yeah. A lot of comments. So.

23:18 Indian Community Organizer: So you can ask them that. They have to find out Anushka, where is he?

23:23 John Daub: Then you'll find him. Okay. How was it? So I think Japan is very strong, no?

23:38 Indian Team Player: Yeah. We actually missed our catches.

23:39 John Daub: I see. That's right. Where do you guys play in Tokyo?

23:43 Indian Team Player: We actually play in on the river.

23:48 John Daub: I see. You guys all the time. I'm running along the river. Really? Yeah. And I see everyone playing cricket down there. Yes.

23:58 Indian Team Player: Sunday morning I'm the fat guy that runs on with no shirt in the summer. Really?

24:03 John Daub: Yeah. I'm running in the hot. Every. Yeah, I remember. I've been seeing for years. I've been living in Edogawa for a long time. Like 13 years.

24:14 Indian Team Player: Oh, really? I'll come down and bother you then.

24:15 John Daub: Here we go. Yeah. Thanks, guys. Yeah. What's your name? John. Already subscribed your channel.

24:25 Indian Team Player: Oh, yeah. Wonderful. Yeah. We have 400 people watching right now. Yeah. Very cool. All right. Good job, guys. See you in Edogawa.

24:50 John Daub: I knew it. I knew that they played near me. I knew that they were near. It's hard to do it, but it's one way to look at it. If you don't look at pink, look at the cherry blossoms and it's more manly that way. Right?

24:57 John Daub: They don't mind. They don't mind the color.

25:31 John Daub: That's my show. Oh, that's me. Yeah, that's me. Right? I cannot.

25:49 John Daub: Oh, you can. I'll send me a message. I get. I get a lot of messages.

26:00 Indian Community Organizer: One particular.

26:03 John Daub: If you wish and you time.

26:06 Indian Community Organizer: Please do come to event. So we have international 24 in.

26:15 John Daub: That's really close.

26:19 John Daub: This is the event.

26:20 Indian Community Organizer: So we have Holi festival. You know Holi, right?

26:22 John Daub: Oh yeah, I know Holi.

26:23 Indian Community Organizer: So we are expecting more than 4,000 angels. Indian crowd, floating crowd in 24.

26:30 John Daub: Wow.

26:28 Indian Community Organizer: In 24.

26:30 John Daub: So, guys, there you go. 24th near, around. Send me. Let's send me the link. I'll put it in the description. Yeah. If you're in Tokyo, I'll try to be there too. We're gonna have a Holi event. That's cool. All right. What is your name? Nice to meet you.

26:46 Indian Community Organizer: Thank you.

26:46 John Daub: Yeah. Send me a message.

26:50 Alan (Team Manager, Japan Cricket Association): I heard you saying that you thought the Indian team was going to have an easy win.

26:55 John Daub: I thought so. That was not so much. I've seen them playing on the end on the river. They're pretty good.

26:57 Alan: Yeah.

26:59 John Daub: Japanese boys are pretty strong, though. I mean, they're young. Despite the pink uniform, Sakura colored uniforms, they're pretty strong.

27:04 Alan: Yeah, they're getting better. I mean, a lot of them are pretty young. There's only like three or four of them over 24, I think. So, you know, they're on the way up.

27:12 John Daub: They got the fundamentals down pretty good. I mean, I was skeptical, I think.

27:16 Alan: Well, a handful of them have been playing since they were probably 14, 15. There's one kid inside, he's been playing since he was 7 or 8 years old. So the rest of them would have started playing at university. So then you've got to get them from baseball back to cricket.

27:32 John Daub: But they're poaching from baseball. But they are.

27:36 Alan: Absolutely.

27:37 John Daub: Yeah. But if you can get the best talent to move over to cricket.

27:40 Alan: Absolutely. Right. It's actually bigger for that, for the girls at the moment, women's cricket team, because there's a lot more opportunities and money in women's cricket right now. It's really interesting, so.

27:52 John Daub: Interesting.

27:52 Alan: Yeah. A lot of potential there. And we've got our women's national team trials on Wednesday in Tokyo.

27:57 John Daub: How many people in Japan are playing cricket right now?

28:01 Alan: Somewhere around three to three and a half thousand.

28:03 John Daub: Okay.

28:04 Alan: And that's actual registered players. But we're probably accessing closer to 15 to 20,000 in terms of school visits. People picking up a bat, just having a go. It's probably closer to that.

28:14 John Daub: That's it. I think it's a grassroots of effort now just to get out there.

28:17 Alan: Very much so. Yeah.

28:18 John Daub: Get people to pick up the bat and you notice, hey, wow, this is a little bit better than a baseball bat. The other thing is, it's true.

28:24 Alan: You can hit it wherever you want.

28:26 John Daub: It's cool. There's no foul ball.

28:29 Alan: You're always getting rewards just for getting a ball. So that's.

28:32 John Daub: That's awesome.

28:33 Alan: Yeah. So, you know, it's pretty constant. Everyone gets a go as well. Like in baseball, you've got like one pitcher, maybe two pitches.

28:38 John Daub: Right.

28:38 Alan: I think each team use six or seven bowlers.

28:41 John Daub: Today they were. That ball was coming in pretty fast. That might even be faster than baseball.

28:45 Alan: No.

28:45 John Daub: Okay.

28:50 Alan: So your fastest bowlers will bowl about 150.

28:49 John Daub: Wow.

28:50 Alan: Yeah, that's about the same.

28:52 John Daub: Yeah, that's about. That's, that's. Yeah, it's about the same.

28:56 Alan: And they can bowl at you right that can hurt.

29:01 John Daub: That's legal.

29:01 Alan: Yeah. You're allowed to, so. Yeah, it could get pretty feisty sometimes.

29:03 John Daub: They're not wearing helmets. They're wearing helmets.

29:04 Alan: Well, today they were playing with a softball.

29:05 John Daub: Okay.

29:05 Alan: But if they play with a hard ball, they'll wear.

29:07 John Daub: Oh, I see.

29:07 Alan: Yeah. Just a friendly game today, so I didn't need it. But, yeah, the hardball, man, that hurts. I'm the other coach. I'm team manager and I work at the Japan Cricket Association.

29:18 John Daub: My name's Alan. Alan, nice to meet you. John.

29:21 Alan: Nice to meet you.

29:21 John Daub: This is only in Japan. So there's 376 people watching right now.

29:28 Alan: Periscope or something like that.

29:29 John Daub: YouTube.

29:30 Alan: YouTube. Ah, well, there we go.

29:32 John Daub: Yeah. This will be playing back forever on YouTube. Good job.

29:37 John Daub: Good, good win today. Awesome. So there's the manager. Oh, let's go check it.

29:58 John Daub: Wow. Check this out. This is the ultimate in food. Wow. Why, this is just amazing setup. Let me. Let me just. I didn't know what they're gonna show me. Check it out. It's. There's Japanese curry. This should have been in the curry stream before. We got a lassi in there. Here's. Here's. What is that? That looks like karaage. Karaage, wow. This is one of my favorite foods. This is a Japanese deep fried chicken. This looks like a tandoori chicken here. And here we have imo fry. Right? This is imo fry from Sano with yakisoba. We have some gyoza. Check that out. This is like. This is like a dream come true. There's okonomiyaki. Ah, look, you got some ramen in the center. That's the curry I had before. This is the butter chicken with the ninja beans. And you have a big naan in here. And there's two of them. That's the other company's curry, which is good.

30:57 John Daub: And there's. There's the ibaragi beef with rencon. That's a lotus root with rice. Awesome. And there's two more kinds of curries. This is crazy. What's going on here? Is this. Is that for me? Is that for me? Oh, yeah. All right. That's not to eat. That was just for show.

31:25 John Daub: I was gonna say because, like, I had eaten a lot already before this, and I thought he pulled me in there to eat more. Like, wait a second. I can't eat all that, but I'll take a picture. That was pretty cool. That was. I was inside of the stage. Stadium inside here. They set up for the press, they set up for the media in there. You can go in there and take a look at all the foods that's being served at the festival. So I hope that the signal was strong enough where you could see, you could see everything here that that's being served at this festival.

32:21 Indian Community Organizer: Before we leave, 24th, we have Holi festival in Funabashi. Whoever is available, they should come and enjoy the colorful festival of India that is Holi. We are expecting more than 3,000 to 4,000 floating crowd. Guys, I'm just inviting all of you to come and enjoy and just have fun.

32:44 John Daub: Awesome. See you there. See you there. Yes. See you there. Send me the link to the event. Yeah, I'll check it.

33:05 Indian Community Organizer: We do keep on doing Indian tournaments. More than 14 teams.

33:12 John Daub: Yeah, I was talking to Alex too. This is gonna be more than once a year now. They're gonna be doing it like regularly.

33:18 Indian Community Organizer: So in any kind of tournament, if you guys do and you have free time, you can come and enjoy and let your people enjoy the cricket.

33:22 John Daub: Yes. Awesome. Yeah, Cool. Right?

33:31 John Daub: Hold on a second. Sometimes the signal here. There you go. That's the number. Sometimes the signal here drops off a little bit. Yeah. Thank you. Cool. So I've just been invited to an awesome event that's going to be happening soon. Did you guys get to see the curry that I was introducing to you before? Hey, everybody. So we're having some. Sometimes we'll have some technical difficulty. I wonder if you can see me. Can you see me now? No, looks like we're offline. Can you see me now?

35:50 John Daub: Hey, everybody, I'm back. Hope anybody can see me. I have tried turning it on and off again. I'm actually live. Can you see me? Is he back? I'm back. Hey. Welcome back. Thank you for the two people that didn't give up. People doing it. Sometimes the signal goes on and off. I apologize for that. Did you see the food that I just showed you? Did you see me show all the food? When I turned the camera off, did it come back on? Did I show you the food? If not, I'm gonna show you to you right now. Did you see the food? I'm gonna replay the Indian food.

36:31 John Daub: I don't know if I have the same kind of passion that I did before, but inside of here. All right, you didn't see the food inside of here. They brought in all the Indian food to the media. And I'm going to show you. So I'm going to show you all the food that they had. So they have tandoori chicken and they had gyoza. And this is imo fry. This is a special food from Sano City. It's potatoes, deep fried, battered. It's really good. This is yakisoba okonomiyaki. We have naan with karē. This is butter chicken. And what do we have here? There's another curry. This is ramen. They have ramen here. That's the Sanomaru chan ramen. Sano ramen. Very good. This is karaage, which is deep fried chicken. This is the one that I had before from Mr. Khan's restaurant. This is the black ninja beans with the butter chicken and samosa with a with a piece of naan. And this is also a really good curry right here. Wow, look at that. That's like a black curry right there. It's a different color on it. So this is all the food that's available. And they set this out for the media to take a look at it. Actually, I filmed that before, but the camera was off, so nobody saw it. But they had. You know what, I'll put a picture of this on Instagram for everybody. They put it like all the food from the festival out on the table. And you can see just this, like this huge variety that's out in the markets that they're selling at at the shops right now.

38:11 John Daub: So they've actually finished, finished the event. I got to be here for another hour or so because there's. All right, there's a media bus that came and took me from Tokyo from Shinjuku station and brought me out to Sano. It was pretty convenient because it brought me straight to the event area. So I don't want to miss that bus. I think if I miss that bus, I'm in deep trouble. But I'm a hitchhiker, so I always find my way back. But it's pretty cool. This is an amazing day. The weather cannot be better. You can see when I was up there in the stands, I could see the entire field, and in the distance you can see those mountains. So it's really is a beautiful area to be in.

38:46 John Daub: I do apologize for the signal being cut out. Now we can now the whole the public can kind of come out here and try to do cricket. I think if I tried, it would be miserable and I would probably hurt myself. But it's pretty cool to be out here. I guess they have it. They have a target too. So if you nail the target, I don't know what you get. Maybe you win something. Respect. She got it. Cool.

39:34 John Daub: So this is really. This is really interesting. So every. You know what really interested me the most? When I talked with Alex and also with the Japan national team's general manager, he told me that cricket, believe it or not, it's mostly girls are getting into it more than boys. That sort of surprised me. I didn't know that cricket was. That women played cricket. I just didn't know and I didn't. I mean, just like women play softball in the United States, it's a totally different sport. So it's like baseball. When you bigger ball, the style is different, but the women can play cricket just like the guys do. And that makes it a really interesting sport to me because I'd like to see co ed teams. Wonder how that would be. I don't think that'd be pretty neat. I'd like to see major league baseball have some. Some women in there too. That's just me, though. But that's interesting.

40:27 John Daub: In Japan, women are. There are more women, I think, starting to play cricket than guys. And the people that are. That are starting to play cricket, they're poached from baseball, which is really interesting. It's cool.

40:43 John Daub: I guess everybody can go in there and give it a shot. And they try to to hit the ball. Let me see what kind of ball they're using. These look like tennis balls.

40:57 John Daub: Tennis about enough. So they're hitting tennis balls and you try to hit that target in the distance.

41:07 John Daub: So they saw. No way.

41:07 John Daub: I want to hit. I want to hit one of those hard ones. I want a dude. I want the. I need the element of danger. You know what? If I'm gonna play cricket, which is already people have. People have the image that cricket's kind of a. At least in the United States, that it's. It's what these gentlemen play. You know, these guys with. They don't work out and they just. That's could be. That's the furthest thing from the truth. When he said that you could bowl at people, like bowl at them, I thought that was pretty crazy. I was like, what? So first of all, you could hit the. You could hit the ball in any direction that you want. You don't actually have to hit it in a fair field of play. There's no foul. You just hit the ball wherever you want. And then the second thing was that the bowler can just throw it right at the at the batter or the striker's head. That's insane. Who made the rules up for this?

42:24 John Daub: All right, so I'm going to end this live stream. It's been a really fun afternoon. I'm sorry for the technical difficulties that we had, but we have things working now. Thank you, Gretchen. Please try cricket. I believe you can do it, Gretchen. I can do anything if I put my mind to it. My mind right now is on food. If my mind is on food, do you think I can still do it? Gretchen and the community. I want everybody just to know. Gretchen is in Arizona and she's in need of a kidney right now. She's having a tough time, but she's a fighter and she's been through. I don't know, Gretchen, have you been through worse? But she doesn't. But she's definitely a fighter. So I'm happy that she's watching and maybe we can raise her spirits up a little bit.

43:03 John Daub: Gretchen's the one who makes me drink monster in the middle of the night. Oh, look at that. That's the curry that I shared before. And it's the end of the day, so they're getting rid of a lot of the food. Oh, there's the samosas. I totally wanted to get a samosa before. Totally wanted to get a samosa.

43:34 John Daub: I'm a little bit sad that Sanomaru, the yurikyara, he left. Please try cricket then food. Clover. Full gosh. You know, I want to try the cricket, but there's a line. Whenever there's a line, I'm always. I'm going to try the cricket. Is it cricket or the cricket? I'm gonna try the cricket and see if I can do the cricket. It's not. It's no fun. There's nobody watching. What if I hit a home run? There's no home run. What if. What if something happens? What if. Right? I guess you never know unless you try.

44:05 John Daub: Alright, let's. I'm going out here. You guys have been trying to motivate me. So I'm gonna go out there and try cricket. I'm gonna try cricket. Really? All right, what's this over here? I'm gonna try this one. Can I try this one? So I guess you take it on the tee, and you try to hit it into the basket. That's it.

44:42 John Daub: That one looks pretty, kitty. All right, I'm gonna. I want to try the one over here. I wanna. I wanna. I want some guy to to throw it at me as hard as he can, and then I want to use the bat and just swat it away like a fly. I'm pretty sure I could do that. Or probably get. Get hit and hit in the nads or something. That dude. That dude's giving his best. He's got a baseball stance. Check it out. So I'm here because Gretchen and a bunch of people have been telling me that I go. Gotta go and try the baseball. So I'm gonna go and try the cricket. He's got a baseball swing. You need a cricket swing. That's pretty good. Hey, guys, I don't know if I'm gonna get to play. Did you see the line? The line is really long. I'm after this girl, and, like, all these other people are in line. I don't know if I can make it.

46:03 John Daub: Oh, wow. He's pretty good. Oh, he hit it. He hit it. You know, I could take a look at this. At the wicket here. Let's see if they standardize wickets. See, the wickets are standardized here. That looks like a standard wicket. That's what it looks like. You want to try to knock these off of the. Yeah, I know. I'm not happy about this music. I think it's pretty dumb to be playing this music. But it. You're supposed to be hitting. Hit the ball with the wicket, and then these things fall off. Yeah, they're not legally. Not even supposed. They're not even allowed to play this music. Actually, I should tell the organizers, you're not allowed to play at events. Copyrighted music.

47:03 John Daub: That's all right. I'm not. I'm not a tattletale. I'm not. What do they call it? If I. If I told people that and we were in prison, I would get shiv'd. So you don't want to. You don't rat. That's it. I'm not a rat. I'm not gonna tell you that the city that Sana was using copyrighted music. I don't know. I will, though, do something else for you. I will find a monster or something to drink. Is that a good second? Do it, John.

47:36 John Daub: Don't give up, Gretchen. It's not a question of giving up. Not only are they playing copyrighted music in there, Gretchen, the line is so long, and it's gonna take looks like 30 minutes or something of dead time just to wait to play cricket. There's. Oh, look, hold on a second. I can do. I can do this.