Cuba will play Premier 12 baseball tournament in Asia

The World Baseball and Softball Confederation (WBSC) announced the groups for the III Premier 12 tournament, to be held between November 10 and 24 in Mexico, Taiwan and Japan.

The 12 participating teams, classified through the WBSC/KONAMI Mundial Ranking, they already know their groups and the headquarters of the matches they will face.

Cuba was placed in group B of the contest, with seats in the “Vantelin Dome Nagoya” stadiums, in Japan, and the “Taipei Dome”, next to the “Tianmu”, both in the city of Taipei, China.

In the Cuban section that will begin actions on November 13, in addition to the hosts, there will be teams from South Korea, the Dominican Republic and Australia.

For their part, in group A, Mexico, the United States, Venezuela, the Netherlands, Panama and Puerto Rico will compete, from November 10 to November 14, at the “Charros de Jalisco Pan American Stadium”, in Guadalajara and in the “Santa Teresita de Tepic”, in Nayarit, both Mexican cities.

In this third edition, the tournament will have a similar form of development as in previous editions. After this first phase, the top two finishers from each group will compete in the Super Round. The first and second place teams from the Super Round will compete in the Premier 12 Championship game, while the third and fourth place finishers will play for a bronze medal.

The Tokyo Dome will host the Super Round, between November 21 and 23. While the medal games are scheduled for the 24th of the same month.

Cuba achieved its classification after occupying position number 8 in the WBSC Ranking with a cut-off date of December 31, 2023, with 3,121 points..

In the previous Premier 12 Cuba was eliminated at the first opportunity after a pathetic task summarized in two slurries out of three possible. They hit 26 of 28 zeros, did not achieve an extra-base hit and their batters struck out 28, with only four bases negotiated.

The last edition of the event, held in 2019, was won by Japan. Meanwhile, four years earlier, in 2015, the first championship was won by South Korea.