Sunday Snippets
By Venkatesh Raghavan
Asians get gung ho over popularizing cricket
The United Arab Emirates and Oman co-hosting the World T-20 cricket tournament is being sighted as an opportunity caused because of the Indian continent’s inability to host it owing to the pandemic crisis that is prevalent in the country. Pankaj Khimji, chairman of Oman Cricket is all gung ho about the way Oman is slated to capitalize on this opportunity.
Cricket’s first endeavor beyond Pakistan took place after the popular Asia Cup cricket tournament commenced playing out in Dubai’s Sharjah stadium. Since then Sharjah gained the status of an international venue for the shorter versions of the game, both ODIs and T20s. Those were the times when the Indian team had just finished winning the Benson & Hedges Cup that was held in Australia. All-rounder Ravi Shastri was the hero of the tournament and had won an Audi car after featuring as the man of the tournament. The first Indo-Pak battle at the Asia cup held at Sharjah ended in a low scoring match which India won by a narrow margin. Subsequently, fortunes changed in favor of Pakistan, with the most memorable ODI recording Pak batting star, Javed Miandad scoring a six of the final delivery of the match to clinch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Decades later, post Afghanistan being freed from the restrictive influence of Taliban, they willingly turned into the minnows of cricket and also qualified to participate in international cricket tournaments. In short, the game of cricket was fast gaining popularity among Asian nations, especially those belonging to the Middle East. Hong Kong which was under British rule till the late nineties also expressed keenness in participating in this sporting event.
Another impetus the Arab states received was when after a Sri Lankan cricket player got injured in Pakistan owing to a terror attack, the country was forced to shift its home ground for all tournaments both Tests and shorter versions to the Sharjah stadium as most teams with the exception of Zimbabwe refused to play in Pakistan owing to security reasons. As the one time Asian minnows Bangladesh emerged to be a stronger cricket team, Afghanistan replaced their position at the bottom of the ratings table.
As of now, Oman, the host country is set to play against their familiar opponents, Scotland and Papua New Guniea besides being slated to play Bangladesh in their first round. Khimji sounded upbeat about the home team faring well in the tournament. His optimism exuded from the track records Oman had in beating both the sides Scotland as well as Papua New Guniea on a fair number of occasions. The cricket chairman also expressed his gratitude to the strong Mumbai team that prepared the hosts to face tougher oppositions in the T-20 tournament.
It may be observed that in the past, football had reached countries like UAE and Iran and the game was regarded as more prestigious than holding of cricket tournaments. However, with the host of opportunities being afforded to the Arab world, cricket tournaments, especially the shorter formats of the game are getting increasingly popular in these countries.
As of now, Asia happens to be the continent with the maximum number of Test playing cricket teams that include India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. With the tide turning in favour of further popularization of the game, the glory of cricket might shift from the Mecca of Cricket Lords to an Asian venue in the future.
