Tony Munro

The Japan Cricket Association intends to submit an application to be included in the cricket sector of the 2010 Asian Games.

The Guangzhou Asian Games Organising Committee (GAGOC) has asked countries who wish to take part in the tournament to make a submission and it will then decide which countries will participate.

CricInfo understands the GAGOC has not yet decided how many countries will feature in the tournament, although the Asian Cricket Council had at one stage suggested the men's event be confined to eight teams - the four Test-playing countries, the hosts China and three non-Test qualifiers.

Indonesia has decided against submitting an application. "We think we are still not ready to compete in such an elite tournament and we would need to spend a substantial amount of funds in getting our team ready for this tournament and we do not have such funds," said Indonesia Cricket Foundation president Prakash Vijaykumar.

Japan will be the only country from the ICC's East Asia-Pacific development zone to apply to take part. The two other countries who are members of the Asian Olympic Committee, South Korea and the Philippines, have not competed in recent regional cricket tournaments. Japan is listed 40th in the ICC's world rankings. It has finished in the top three of the medal count at every Asian Games.