5 events in Associate Cricket which changed World Cricket

 There have been many incidents in Associate Cricket if which went in opposite order would have changed the whole world order in Cricket. Many of these incidents will come as a surprise to the Youth of Cricket who know Cricket as just probably 6-7 Good Teams and 3 Minnow Test teams whom they will not see their country play and perhaps a Kenya and a Ireland or maybe now have got a glance of Afghanistan.

Perhaps the events that will be mentioned below if had happened, then the whole scenario of World Cricket would have been different. Although there can be many more but I have listed the top 5, and like a curtain-raiser I will go from No 5 to No 1.

5. Argentina not Invited for ICC Membership
This name would perhaps bring most number of surprises. Very few people know that Argentina was once considered a decent cricket team of the level of probably New Zealand at that time. Argentina had the largest population of English outside Britain. When ICC was formed it was formed as Imperial Cricket Council and membership was limited to British Empire only and Argentina was not eligible. With passing of time the game simply went into decline
If Argentina has been an ICC member then the game surely could have some footing just has been the case with Rugby and Hockey in Argentina. It would have also meant Spanish playing cricket country widely opening the Cricket market and Cricket could have been much bigger game but alas!!

This could have been a picture of a major cricket team talking in Spanish-Ola

 4. Canada postponing Test Membership
Another shocker for you :) . Well in the 1950's ICC made up it's mind to offer Test Cricket to Canada. After all Canada was a major Commonwealth Country and cricket had a long history here. However Canada felt that it would need some more time to develop it's cricket and guess what that time never came and the boat was missed.
Imagine if Canada had been a Test Nation, it would have meant Cricket would have been a major game in North America and perhaps a lot of influence on sports in USA too. Did we miss a Canada- West Indies Rivalry for the future.

Imagine Canada playing against Australia in Boxing day Test

3. Ireland WC Victory over Pakistan
Pakistan one of the favorites of the tournament. Ireland, virtually an unknown team. It is St Patrick's day, an Important day for Ireland and many Irish fans in the ground. Pakistan was bowled out in 130's and that was a shocker, but Ireland began to crumble. That was not long to be, Ireland stumbling but crossed the finish line and created history.

They never knew their hard earned victory would bring misery for Associates

 This should have made ICC happy with cricket improving but it had the exact opposite impact. ICC for next world cup cut the teams from 16 to 14 and the process of Elitism gained hold. This was to be further strengthened when ICC almost made a decision to make 2015 WC a 10 Test Playing World Cup only but the team which started it actually came to rescue when it chased down England by magic effort of Kevin O'Brien.
 

2. Cricket missing out in Olympics
Cricket was only played once in Olympic with Great Britain taking the gold and France taking the silver. This event was never repeated.

Do we need to say anything on this

 Imagine with cricket in Olympics would have meant that many countries would have taken the game and much more money and support from the government for Cricket. Well it is a chance missed and ICC still does not want Cricket in Olympics!!!

1. Imperial Cricket Conference- USA not invited 
Cricket at one time was very popular game in USA, but as everything British was opposed hence was cricket. However cricket remained a strong games in various pockets like Philipdeplhia, New York and some areas and continued to thrive there. The game surely needed support in form of exchange of games with England and other countries.
But what happened, ICC never invited USA as it's member and game went into a big slide. Imagine with US the biggest sports economy involved in the game, it would have put game in a different league.

Obama could have been No 1 fan of Lara!!!!

 I many times imagine what the game would have been with Argentina, Canada & USA playing the boxing day test with Australia or fighting a T20 olympics game with China. Well only if & buts were true.

Club + Domestic League way forward for Nepal and Afghanistan

South Asia is the power hub of cricket and in South Asia two nations Nepal & Afghanistan are really rising very quickly. These 2 nations if go the right way can surely join the likes of Bangladesh, Zimbabwe or New Zealand soon.

Afghanistan has already established itself to be a top Associate / Affiliate Cricket Nation, which has rapidly progressed from Div 5 to Div 1 within a span of 4 years. Nepal also if going the present way can soon be seen playing the 2015 World Cup and getting an ODI status.

These 2 Associate unlike most Associate have a population crazy about cricket but like most of the associates the both countries are reliant on a small pool of players. Over that the playing XI depends on few stars to take them to victory. This is a very dangerous situation. When these stars fade away then the team can go in a downward spiral.

This was the case with Kenya who had got a good set of talented players in their ranks but without a domestic structure the replacements never came and now we all know in what state Kenya is.

Having known that a domestic structure is very important the question comes on the aspect of funding. Both Afghanistan Cricket Board and Cricket Association of Nepal are not rich enough or have funding like Test Nations to for a full comprehensive domestic structure. So how do we overcome the 2 dimensionally opposite issues

Typical village in Afghanistan & Nepal. Majority of population in these countries live in villages and essential for strong cricket team.

 To look for the answer we need to understand the demographics & geographical factors of both the countries which are quite similar in many aspects. Both the countries are mostly hilly regions with major cities located in broad valleys. Both the countries consist mostly of villages spread across the country with a few major cities. Afghanistan has cities spread out across the country while Nepal has it concentrated towards the Central and Eastern Parts.The Village is a very strongly knit unit in both the countries, where it is like a family and is headed by a Sarpanch in Nepal and a village elder in Afghanistan.

In such a scenario the to have a spread across the country it is very important to have players from the villages. India increased massively in strength when players from smaller cities started to come (Like the Captain Dhoni) against older days when most of the players came from bigger cities. India also has majority of Population in rural areas, and involving them surely is helping

Right Burkhashi in Afghanistan and Left Elephant polo in Nepal. Village level tournaments are already been organized in both the countries.

 Hence to reach the villages we need a club structure. By Club I do mean not a club like in England where some old folks are sitting drinking beer playing cards and watching a cricket match, with gentlemen claps. A club is a simply a team which can be formed by a village or some locality in the towns. It is not a concept which is something very new. It already happens in both the countries where the villages come together and play in some sort of tournaments. In Afghanistan Burkhashi the national game is a example of the same, while in Nepal, Elephant Polo or local soccer matches or volleyball matches keep happening

The Point is about making such tournament more structured and monitoring them in an efficient way. To start with such tournaments can easily be financed. Firstly to start with to register a club a nominal annual fee can be charged. When we have such a local club tournament a minor entry fee can be can be charged from each team. Then secondly local sponsors can be roped in. The local tournament normally have local sponsors and these need not be the exotic ones like Pepsi etc but can be a local business, who would want the tournament to be named after his late Father or some big shop or some local business. It is a great point to maximize the reach in local areas.

Hence the local club tournaments can not only be made self sustainable but rather can earn some small profits out of them. However based on local tournament you can unearth some good players but will not be able to give them good exposure. For that a Domestic Set up is essential

The Domestic Set up should be based out of provinces or major cities. These countries ideally should not have more than 6 to 8 teams in the domestic set up. These can be regions like West, North etc or Based around major cities. Each domestic set up should have a catchment areas in which all the local clubs will be registered to it. Hence the domestic team say a Kabul or Kathmandu may have clubs from the city and the surrounding villages. It will choose its player roster from these clubs. For Financing it will have some income from clubs, conducting tournament and then would receive certain funding from ACB or CAN. This would help it in paying some money to the domestic players who then would give more time for the domestic tournaments.

The Domestic tournament can be conducted with 2 day, 1 day and T20 matches spread around the playing season and ensuring that it is played on the weekly off days. The team play half of the matches in it's home ground and would travel for rest of it's matches. This would mean that people can work on weekdays and play cricket on weekly off days throughout the year rather than playing for 2 weeks and not playing for rest of year. This continuity would definitely improvement fitness and mental ability of the players

This Club + Domestic structure ensure that a good set of some 90 to 160 Players will be playing some quality cricket at domestic level, earning a small money from it while maintaining their regular lives and jobs. The Clubs would help in providing a constant stream of talent for the teams and a good player has a fair chance of making it into the national team

All these things might look very easy but it would definitely need a lot of effort from the boards and definitely dedication. If the system is implemented soon the quality of team can definitely improve many fold and we may see these teams challenging the best. Let's hope for it and see it happening soon.

Cricket's gateway to Central Asia

In the recent World T20 world, one team really impressed and surprised everybody. Not many could imagine that a country which has been under war for more than 30 years could perform so well. Afghanistan with it's battery of pacers and swashbuckling batsman impressed the whole world and perhaps is taking all the right steps towards becoming a good team.

When I heard about Afghanistan team playing against a local Peshawar club I could never imagined that one day, Australia would agree to play an ODI against the same team and surprisingly many players were part of both the teams. Afghans learned cricket when they were in refugee camps in Pakistan. Many of the Pakistani stars were Pashtun's like Imran Khan, the largest ethnic group of Afghanistan and it became very attractive to Afghans. When in 1992 a Pashtun Imran Khan lead Pakistan to World Cup victory this has an immediate connect and liking for the game. Thus the game entered Afghanistan

Afghanistan cricketers not surprisingly belonged to only one group Pashtuns, and the other Ethnic groups were not represented such as Tajiks, Hazara, Uzbek or Turkmen. This was not surprising since mostly Pashtuns came to Pakistan while others went to other countries like Tajikistan, Iran etc which were not cricket country.

However overtime things began to change. The game of Cricket became a proud symbol of representing Afghanistan. Now besides Pashtun the other ethnic groups also started to relate to the game. Teams and Clubs were there in almost all the states. Cricket truly has started to become a national game. The U-19 team for first time had youngsters across the ethnic groups.

It is a matter of time when, we will soon have a composite team in Afghanistan. This has already started to sow the seeds of Cricket possibly becoming a major sport in many other countries. Afghanistan shares ethnic group across borders. Pashtun are spread across Afghanistan and Pakistan, Tajiks across Tajikistan and Afghanistan, Uzbek similarly across Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, Hazara share religion with Iran, Turkmen with Turkmenistan and finally Baloch across Afghanistan, Pakistan & Iran.

Afghanistan and it's location in Central Asia

With the Afghan's having relations across many borders, with the game engrossed in the nation, it would mean that sooner or later seeing the passion with their relatives across the borders the game is bound to spread in the Central Asian nations of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and in the Middle East country of Iran.

This means that like the Geopolitical Strategic importance of Afghanistan, similarly it is of the same importance to ICC. With Central Asia playing cricket, it would draw interest in many other areas like former Soviet nations and many more middle east populations. But that is a thought too far for this time. The Central Asian countries have shown their mark in many sports and these athletic people surely can make some great cricket teams.

So Afghanistan becomes a really important nation for Afghanistan. Not only ICC can establish Cricket as a game which will bring peace to Afghanistan, by helping the country, but it naturally helps many more countries come to fold of cricket. Let's hope to see a cracking cricket team of Tajikistan or Iran playing a cricket match against India in near future.

Sierra Leone Cricket “rising from Ashes”

Sierra Leone as a country has experienced more than its fair share of hardship.
The civil war which stretched from 1991 to 2002, decimated the country. 50,000 people were killed, hundreds of thousands were wounded, many permanently, and towns, villages and cities were left without basic amenities.
Cricket which had a rich history in the country of course cricket was a victim and not spared.

Few people may be aware that cricket has been played in Sierra Leone at sub-regional domestic level since the 1930’s and was enjoyed by a modest but dedicated and passionate group of followers and participants. Unsurprisingly, the civil war obliterated nearly all the cricketing infrastructure. Grounds and equipment were destroyed almost without exception.

Many would think that the game could have and perhaps, should have died. Instead, it has made a genuine “From the Ashes” comeback.

Cricket bringing hope in Sierra Leone. Cricket is making all the right noises from Afghanistan to Sierra Leone

Juniors are playing the sport in larger numbers than ever and the nation fields representative sides at every level in African regional tournaments.

 Incredibly, like the rise of Phoenix Sierra Leone national Under-19 squad in 2008 in a dream like performances defeating African heavy weights like Kenya & Namibia successfully came runners up in Africa and won its way through to the final stages of U-19 World Cup qualifying in Toronto, Canada. Sadly shattering all dreams the Canadian government refused them visa’s and denied in what could have been a Afghanistan like story.

Cricket in Sierra Leone has made all the right noises and recently received a major boost with the announcement that United Kingdom based coaching agency Coaching Cricket Excellence has donated equipment - including bats, pads, katchets, helmets, gloves and balls - to the Kenemmanjane Club in Freetown.

The SL cricket mostly consists of Clubs. Of them once club stands out-the Kenemmanjane Cricket Club . The club has both men’s and women’s teams that are presently in domestic leagues and competitions and the women’s team was Bronze medal winner at the Sierra Leone National Women’s T20 Cricket League 2012.

The Director of Coaching Cricket Excellence Peter Willings said helping Sierra Leone is part of a wider aim I have to supply cricket kit and other sporting equipment to parts of the world that are not as advantaged as Britain. “We have more than enough cricket equipment here, both new and old, and I believe it’s only right that people elsewhere get use of it rather than it being available to those who have plenty already.”

Coaching Cricket Excellence is a Coaching Agency based in Ealing, West London, England. They exist to help people of all ages play the sport. They currently have projects running in Uganda, India, Rwanda, South Africa and the Caribbean.


Peter Willings said “Kenemmanjane Cricket Club is doing a wonderful job helping generate interest in cricket. Keep getting the children involved from as young an age as possible and with luck you’ll get a touring team from the UK come visit you soon.”

Peter further promised that he will continue to help the Kenemmanjane Cricket Club with equipments and other areas as long as he is able to. “I’ve assisted with sending cricket kit to Uganda, India, Rwanda, Afghanistan, the West Indies and South Africa thus far. I would like to say a big thank you to my friend Bernie Spratt and our donors for their support, without that it wouldn’t have happened.”
The Founder and Secretary General of the Kenemmanjane Cricket Club Emmanuel Pessima spoke of his delight at receiving the new equipments. “We have the desire to develop cricket much more extensively at the grassroots level but we don’t have the necessary equipment and facilities. Hopefully this donation will be the beginning of something wonderful. “We would like to thank the Coaching Cricket Excellence and their donors for wonderful contribution. It will really help us and we are very grateful.”

Let’s hope this would help SL cricket rise to higher places and would be closely watch them in the African Div 2 which is undergoing presently in SA.

High time for Central Contracts & Stadium

This article comes at a time when the Nepal fans are very happy with a great win the team got in ICC World Cricket League Division 4. The fans now are confident that the team has a good shot for 2015 World Cup.

While the team has done greatly and very nicely guided with the dynamic coach Pubudu, it must be noted that the team performance has not been due to some great work done by Nepal Cricket Authorities but rather than the passion of the players and some extra curricular activities led from the front by the Coach. The Coach got the Captain Paras to play regular Club Cricket in Canada. He got Shakti Gochan a trial in an IPL team, while 2 young players got a chance to play in Sri Lanka. These got players much some required exposure and regular match practice.


While the coach has been doing great job the organizers are nowhere near to what they are supposed to do. When I started following Nepal Cricket the list of to do's for Nepal Cricket remain exactly same even after so many years. Well the things in Nepal have changed a lot. There is a working democracy now, the civil war is over and the confidence in country is much higher.

Out of the many to do lists, 2 clearly standout. If these are fulfilled it will address many of the problems plaguing Nepal Cricket. The first & very very important is the Central Contracts.

Central Contracts are the very core to a sports team. It means that the players would not have to worry on the financial aspect of life and just focus on Cricket. It would also mean that unlike what happened in the past when Nepal have lost loads of U-19 players because they simply did not see any future in cricket can be retained. The U19 players now can see a future in Cricket. It would also mean that many more upcoming players in country would think of Cricket as an option.  

However many people would say Central Contracts are simply not possible. There are no resources. Countries like Ireland who get much more money from ICC are not able to give central contracts to all the player, even though they have private sponsorships.

I would like to simply to point out that Ireland get around 0.6 M$ from ICC while Nepal gets around 0.1 M$, but the funds received from ACC are much higher than what Ireland receives from ICC Europe as around half the development funds go to ACC. Also the per capita PPP income of Ireland is $41000 as compared to Nepal's $1250 and a purchasing power of Dollar in Nepal is 2.5 times more than Ireland. This simply means that funding of Nepal puts in a much stronger position than that of Ireland. A average central contract in Nepal of 25000 Rs (294$) would be good enough to start with while this is simply not imaginable in Ireland.

So definitely Central Contracts is a possibility and CAN should extend the same immediately to 15-20 Players. Government gave players 300000 each after winning Div 4, well that is exactly what is the amount that is required for Central Contracts

The second most important thing is a Stadium. The benefits of a stadium are numerable. It would give the team a place to call their own where they can practice on quality ground. Secondly the coach is really pushing hard for a National Cricket Academy. The stadium definitely would mean National Cricket Academy up and running and would be producing players for future

Sharjah Stadium: A stadium which changed the fortune of UAE Cricket.

The stadium along with TU ground combined can be used for conducting fantastic domestic tournaments and a fantastic exposure to even domestic teams.

However the biggest benefit of a stadium is the International Exposure Nepal can get. I tried to work on some simple numbers. If CAN invites India A for a 20 day tour of 1 Four Day Match, 5 One Day & 2 T20 Matches, the total Cost which CAN would have to bear would be around 1.1 Crores. This includes cost of India A team travel, Stay, Food, Facilities and also the cost of Nepal team and officials. Now under normal circumstances CAN would bear all the costs. But if Nepal has a stadium and even if 10,000 People(Much less than what people turn out) come for each match buying 150 Rs tickets, this would cover all the costs and give CAN a profit. The private sponsorships & broadcasting rights would be additional to CAN.

This means CAN earns and Nepal team also get excellent exposure. The people would also see some quality cricket and would surely want to watch it. Then the stadium can be used to host International matches. Imagine if the stadium was already there then Nepal could have been the host location for Pakistan. For Pakistan it would be a much cheaper home ground than UAE and surely with good crowd support. This also brings in lots of tourism in Nepal which surely should get Nepal Government interested

The Stadium surely would not come cheap. A decent stadium would cost around 5 M$ (45 Crores). CAN may not have all the money but it surely got funds from ACC, it can rope in Nepal Government and rest can be in form of loans. As we have already seen a India A tour can be profitable to CAN if used properly, similar tours can be arranged and the loan to be paid off. It is all about thinking in an entrepreneurial way.

These are the 2 issues which addressed by CAN brings in loads of good for Nepal Cricket. It brings in full player focus, better exposure to team, chance to develop domestic cricket, opportunity to get more talent and tourism for the country. In 2 words "Complete Package". So the cricket lovers and fan in the country should really push hard for both the issues to be addressed. I would be waiting for these to happen soon.