What about a Lankan cricket High Commission in China?
View(s):China has given Sri Lanka a helping hand on many fronts so perhaps it might be timely if this gesture can be reciprocated in the form of much-needed help to lift the fortunes of cricket in China.
Cricket is as unfamiliar to the Chinese as chopsticks might be for many Sri Lankans. But that hasn’t prevented the ICC and its Asian counterpart, the ACC, from gamely trying to promote the sport in the mainland.
Like most people, the cricketing governing bodies are also enraptured by the prospect of cricket being played by the millions in China. It is a huge market, and as soccer and basketball has shown, it can be a lucrative one too, hence the bid to push the game among the masses.
The Hong Kong Cricket Association has been at the centre of this development but for a small associate member of the ICC, their support has been limited. It is up to the bigger test-playing nations to provide the backing needed for the world’s most-populous country (well at least until India overtakes them) to become a cricketing power.
The story goes that the Chinese were enraptured by the game mainly due to the skills shown by Sri Lanka as they humbled the mighty Australians in the World Cup final in 1996 in Lahore. Apparently a senior Chinese government official had said if Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan can win a World Cup, why not China.
And thus the idea was germinated to set up a national cricket team, both men and women in China and run under the country’s governing body for ‘small balls association’ which also includes ping pong. Soccer and basketball come under the ‘big balls association’.
While an idea can be priceless, implementing it is another matter and China’s small balls association has quickly found out that it is proving much harder to push cricket among the masses. Unlike rugby sevens, unfortunately cricket is still not an Olympic sport making it harder to sell the game.
With rugby sevens now included in the Olympic medal roster – from 2016 – the sport has received massive backing from the state and provincial governments in China. At this summer’s quadrennial China National Games in Shenyang province, sevens was a medal sport for the first time as the provinces desperately tried to win the prestigious medal.
Hong Kong too sent a team – after all it is a special administrative region on China – and was expected to win the gold medal. But a referee who penalized Hong Kong 24 times in the 14-minute match was too big a hurdle and Hong Kong lost to eventual winners Shenyang in the semi-finals.
But I digress. The point is that because of the fact that rugby sevens is an Olympic sport, it has got financial backing from both state and provincial level, something which cricket lacks in China.
For China winning an Olympic medal is the be-all and end-all of sport in the country. Nothing else comes close in the priorities’ stake. With cricket still to push for Olympic inclusion – although the ICC is looking at the prospect of Twenty20 being such a vehicle – the game struggles on in China.
Presently the support China gets is all a bit ad hoc. The Asian Cricket Council in the late 90s put in place a national coach for China, former Pakistan international Rashid Khan, who when he first arrived found his small following gripping the bat like it was baseball.
Yet despite the strangeness of it all, cricket has made tremendous strides over the past decade. There are now around two dozen homegrown teams playing regular competitive games in Beijing. Khan says his players in the national squad, both men and women, have become more skillful.
Still cricket faces a long march in China. In 2010, at the Asian Games in Guangzhou, cricket (the Twenty20 version) was included for the first time as a medal sport. China built a cricket stadium for the Games and it remains the only one in the country.Sri Lanka was led by Jehan Mubarak and failed to make it to the medal podium. At least we turned up. India didn’t even bother to send a team apparently because the BCCI was in dispute with the Indian Olympic Committee and the Olympic Council of Asia over broadcasting rights from the games.
A great chance to build a cricketing diplomacy across the Himalayas was lost. While countries like Pakistan, and even Australia, gives some form of support for China’s bid to develop cricket, India has stayed aloof.
Sri Lanka must get into the picture. We have a healthy relationship at government level between the two countries and it would not take much to extend this to the sporting field too.
China needs coaches desperately. They need to teach their teachers – in PE schools, universities and even in the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) – how to propagate the message.
While Beijing is the stronghold, cricket is also played else where. The China Cricket Association estimates that there are 68 teams in schools and universities throughout the country. This is just a drop in such a vast country.
Sri Lanka Cricket should look at fostering the game in China. They should start by sending coaches which would be widely welcomed by China.
If China can help Sri Lanka build everything from an airport to highways, why not reciprocate and help them build their field of dreams – and not a baseball diamond but a cricketing oval.
We must get into the act now. It would further cement the ties between the two countries. It is not often that others are inspired by recent achievements of our sportsmen. Here is a unique opportunity and we must grab it.
Perhaps there can be a bilateral trade in sport. China is a sporting giant when it comes to the Olympics. They can provide us with the knowhow in other sports including badminton and table tennis and in return Sri Lanka tells them how to bat.
Who knows there might be immediate dividends for Sri Lanka Cricket. Although the game lacks for funds domestically, it hasn’t prevented China from investing in the game abroad – it reportedly funded US$132 million worth of cricket facilities in the West Indies in recent years, including a US$30 million loan to Jamaica for a 25,000-seater stadium.
It is time to ramp up the cricketing diplomacy with China.