Dominican Republic are favourites to earn the sixth and final Tokyo 2020 baseball place at the final qualifier starting in Mexico tomorrow ©Getty Images

The Dominican Republic, Venezuela and The Netherlands will contest the last of six places in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics baseball competition when they compete in the Final Qualifying Tournament that starts in the stand-in hosting venue of Mexico today.

This World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) event, originally due to take place in Chinese Taipei, will take place at Estadio de Béisbol Hermanos Serdán in Puebla and will conclude on Saturday (June 26).

Chinese Taipei, at number four the highest-ranked team not to have qualified for Tokyo 2020,  pulled out of the event because of a spike in COVID-19 cases.

On June 10 Baseball Australia followed Chinese Taipei in withdrawing, citing the "insurmountable" challenges of travelling to Mexico at such short notice.

Australia, ranked sixth in the WBSC world standings, would have been the favourites to qualify for Tokyo 2020 in Mexico.

China had already withdrawn before the Qualifier was moved from Mexico.

The Dominican Republic earned a place in this final qualifier through finishing second to Mexico in the Americas qualifying event, and Venezuela joined them after finishing third.

Manager Hector Borg made 10 changes from the Americas qualifier roster, leaving out former Major League Baseball All-Star José Bautista.

Venezuela will recall only 13 players from that tournament, with former Major League Baseball World Series winner Anibal Sanchez having been left out by manager José Alguacil.

But the Venezuela roster features massive MLB experience in infielder Amarist, who has played 702 career games, catcher Chirinos, who has played 602 games, infielders Hernan Perez, who has played 651 games, Luis Sardiñas, who has appeared in 182 games, and outfielder Gorkys Hernandez with a record of 394 games.

Catcher Wilson Ramos is a former MLB All-Star.

The Netherlands earned their place for finishing runners-up in the 2019 Africa Europe qualifying tournament.

Japan qualified for the Olympic baseball competition as hosts, and Israel joined them after winning the Africa/Europe qualifier in September 2019.

Two more teams qualified in November 2019 through the WBSC Premier12 tournament - Mexico, the Americas winners, and South Korea, who won in the Asia/Oceania category,

The United States took the fifth place earlier this month through the Americas qualifying event.