China-story part II-"China's timetable for World Cup glory"

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Source-Cricinfo

China's timetable for World Cup glory
Martin Williamson
July 2, 2004


The news that China was one of three countries granted affiliate membership of the ICC - the Isle of Man and Mexico were the others - will hardly grab the headlines in the cricket world. But with a population of 1.26 billion, China has the potential to be a massive force in any sport it cares to adopt, even if only a small percentage of the people are involved.


The decision of the ICC's to welcome China has not come out of the blue. In recent months the Chinese authorities have begun a drive to promote the game, with schools in several cities - including Beijing and Shanghai - have been ordered to start teaching cricket. And in the last couple of weeks sources close to the government have said that a site in Beijing has been identified and set aside as a potential venue for an international cricket stadium.


The authorities face a daunting job to explain the game to the people, let alone to persuade them to take it up. There is no history of playing cricket in China, and a level of bewilderment at what it involves that would make the average American come across as a keen enthusiast.


But when the Chinese authorities decide to take a course of action, they don't do so in a half-hearted manner. In recent decades they have invested their energies into promoting a number of sports - including swimming, athletics and football - and they have quickly built up strong power-bases in them. China's aims are bold. They hope to be involved in the World Cup by 2019, and to have made a significant impression within 20 years. They have the people, the money and the will.


While Malcolm Speed, the ICC's chief executive, welcomed China into the fold, he might want to exercise some caution. In recent months the ICC has been dragged into the political arena - notably over Zimbabwe - and China is another potential hot potato. Its human-rights record has been widely condemned, and there was a certain irony in the timing of the announcement. No sooner had Speed sat down, than the next speaker was outlining the hardening ICC stance on drug abuse, an area in which China has been roundly and consistently condemned over the years.


But those issues are for another day, and with luck by the time China arrives as a serious cricketing nation those concerns will have long since been resolved. The 2023 World Cup in China? It might not be as unlikely as it seems.

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The recent announcement that China has been instructed by its rulers to unravel the mysteries of cricket in order that they should rival the best in the world in 25 years' time will have been greeted with views that stretch from laughing disbelief to, one hopes, sincere interest.

When the eastern mind sets itself to achieve a goal, however unlikely, more often than not it will succeed. In the last 50 years red China has become a serious competitor at many Olympic sports previously unknown in the country. In this time, perhaps their only significant failure has been their inability to mount an effective challenge on the football field - although not for want of trying.

It needs a considerably elastic imagination to suggest seriously that in a quarter of a century China might be able to put out a phalanx of fast bowlers to rival the invincible West Indians of the late 70s and 80s. There is little doubt that they will be able to spin deviously and devilishly. It was Ellis Achong - of Chinese origin although he plied his wares on behalf of the West Indies - who was responsible for the unorthodox left-arm spinner's stock ball which became known as a "Chinaman".

It may be that this fact alone has persuaded the Chinese government to mount a serious challenge in a hitherto unknown theatre of sport. Nonetheless it is difficult not to greet this announcement from Beijing with a sort of "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" sense of humour. If the Master, Noel Coward, had still been alive, he would surely have greeted China's impending arrival in the citadels of the cricket with a poem or even a song that would have brought the house down.

Of course it is easy for Western eyes, looking down from the heights of some cricketing Mount Olympus, to take this sort of patronising view of what has so far come out of China on this subject. Cricket is a fiendishly difficult game to crack - whether by gentle encouragement or government diktat. If there could be any guarantee of success, England's cricket would not have been in the doldrums for as long as it has in recent times.

Yet it has never paid to underestimate the Chinese. It will be fascinating to see how they go about trying to spread an entirely foreign and incomprehensible game among their 1.3 billion nationals. Then they will have to nurture and fertilise it so that it not only gains a firm hold in the Chinese mentality, but also produces individual players who are good enough to compete with the best in the world.

It would be a brave man who bets heavily against them succeeding. India and Sri Lanka have found it difficult to produce genuine fast bowlers and yet both have won the World Cup, as have Pakistan; although men of bigger stature with a more natural inclination to bowl fast are found there, especially in Pathan strongholds on the north-west frontier.

It is fascinating to try to second guess the sequence of events if China should succeed. It could be the start of cricket as a truly global game. If China prospered and began to beat Australia every four years for the, say, Golden Chopsticks Trophy, it might produce a significant competitive urge on the other side of the world. And what fun it would be if the Americans find themselves compelled to compete against the Chinese.

At the moment all this seems fanciful in the extreme. Nonetheless, those arch opportunists in the East who come together as the Asian Cricket Council, have made chirruping noises to China and are ready to welcome them into their midst. It would be a surprise if China did not eagerly grasp the first hand of friendship extended in their direction.

India, Pakistan and Bangladesh would be keen to give as much help as they can, for their cricket administrators know full well that in the unlikely event of China fulfilling their hopes it would make the Eastern block the unassailable world power in cricket. This is something that India's administrators, led by the ever-ambitious Jagmohan Dalmiya, have already been spending so much time and effort in trying to bring about.

They long to move the centre of cricket from Lord's to the sub-continent, where the game produces so much money. They are determined that their vision of the game should be the one that counts. One-day cricket is the great God in Asia. It is what the people have been brainwashed into believing is the genuine article, and it is what the television companies have been persuaded is the mixture to give the troops on a daily basis.

If, in a few years' time, China comes to the party as a one-day side, it will be game set and match to the Asian lot. So it is crucial that, however absurd China's recently expressed ambitions may seem to Western eyes, the International Cricket Council should get off their behinds and do all they can to help the Chinese - and to try and channel their efforts, which will never be less than whole-hearted, into the right channels. Then, if China is to burst upon the international cricket scene, it will not necessarily be as the major vehicle in assisting a fragmentation of world cricket, a danger that is identifiable even at this early stage.

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