At the Rugby World Cup Sevens in Hong Kong in March, a group of eminent rugby journalists were talking about Japan's bid to host Rugby World Cup 2011. After discussing -- and agreeing -- how the government-backed proposal by the Japan Rugby Football Union to ...
During a recent tour to Guam, members of the Tsunami Teetotallers (a Japan-based ad hoc rugby team) were left speechless when, during prematch introductions, their scrumhalf Richard Beard declared himself to be an English "experimental novelist." Born in 1967, Beard graduated from Cambridge University and ...
Australia has never really needed any ploys to lure travelers to this vast country. The natural beauty of the rain forests in the north, deserts in the dry interior and mountains in the south, all surrounded by some of the greatest beaches in the ...
Listening to a group of cricketers talking could, for the uninitiated, be like listening to a group of aliens discussing life on their planet. Therefore The Japan Times is proud to present an unofficial cricketing dictionary. Ashes -- A small wooden urn containing the ashes ...
"Sledging," or "mental disintegration" as it is referred to by the Australians, is the use of abusive or offensive words against an opponent. Sledge is taken from the Australian saying "as subtle as a sledgehammer" and the Aussies have gained a reputation as masters ...
In 1996, a young bowler playing against the Bangladesh national cricket side dismissed two batsmen with consecutive balls -- the first delivered with his right arm, the second with his left. If that astonishing feat had been performed by a high-profile player such as Australia's ...
It is often said that the future of a nation lies with its youth. If that is also true of sport, then Gunma could soon end up being the Barbados of Asia, producing cricketers on a par with the great Caribbean production line. The ...
Golfer Shigeki Murayama is just one of many Japanese sportsmen and sportswomen to have flown the coop and set up base overseas in recent years. Like his counterparts in baseball, soccer and rugby, the "Smiling Assassin" realized he could only do so much on ...
Caddies are part of playing golf in Japan. So it is often with relief that Japanese golfers find they are allowed to negotiate a course without strangers in their midst when they play abroad. This also frees them from having to listen to someone admonish ...
Forget indicators such as unemployment levels and interest rates; there's no simpler way to chart Japan's economic well-being than by tracing the ebb and flow of the popularity of golf. Though it might have been custom-made for Japan -- offering as it does the chance ...
