China's Olympic dream

With India and England opposing cricket’s inclusion in the Olympics, where does that leave the growth of the sport in China? Sahil Dutta speak to those who still believe in cricket's untapped potential in China, a country used to getting its way.

Aminul Islam is going for it. The former Bangladesh captain is trying to explain cricket to a perplexed group of non-believers. But he is doing it in Mandarin.

He is one of a handful of cricketing missionaries attempting to develop the game in China. It is no easy task.

The men’s team play alongside countries like Qatar and Burma in the lowest tier of international cricket. Most of the Chinese population have not even heard of the game they call ‘Banqiu’.

But in the new China optimism abounds. Its large population and recent wealth make it a vast resource. There are fortunes to be found and cricket wants in. “China has a wonderful sporting background and a very strong economy,” says Aminul. “It’s this that motivates us.”

The possibilities are tantalising. Imagine China hosting India for their inaugural Test. The game is held in a new, purpose-built stadium larger than the MCG. Twitter is ablaze as the two giant nations meet for the biggest sporting spectacle in history. As sponsors pour in to join the occasion, the colonial game is finally, and completely, annexed by the East.

If that sounds far-fetched, just think of China’s other sporting feats. In the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics they won 15 golds to the USA’s 83. Twenty-four years later they led the medal table. And China already has one major cricketing legacy. It spent $132 million building facilities in the West Indies for the 2007 World Cup.

“If we could get even 10 per cent of China that would be 10 million new cricket fans and players,” says Shahriar Khan of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC). “Cricket is a marginal sport in most of the established countries. China could secure its future. But developing cricket is a harder challenge than any emperor has ever had to face in the country.”

Cricket first came to China through British colonials 156 years ago. They established a regular fixture between Shanghai Cricket Club and Hong Kong Cricket Club that has endured ever since but the sport remained the preserve of expats. That changed in 2006 when the ICC sent its first delegation on a reconnaissance mission to explore prospects of native cricket in China.

Its then CEO, Malcolm Speed, returned dreaming of Chinese Test cricket within his lifetime. To make that a reality the ICC injected $5m, a one-off sum, to help China prepare for hosting the 2010 Asian games. China’s first ground was created in Guangzhou for the tournament, and Aminul was charged with leading coaching and umpiring courses for PE teachers in Chinese schools and universities.

“I remember my first session,” he says. “It was in an elementary school in Shenzhen. I was told: ‘Aminul, welcome to China. We want to play cricket in our own way. We have a 5,000-year-old culture so don’t try to impose things on us.’

“In the first session there were 17 kids. Some had played baseball and were very good fielders. They were very, very disciplined. The only thing they missed was a cricket culture.”

There are now nearly 200 trained coaches and 100 trained umpires spreading the gospel in China. Aminul estimates that 30,000 school, college and university students have been introduced to the game, with more than 7,000 still actively playing.

It is a bottom-up plan. PE teachers from across China are invited to camps where they learn from international coaches like Aminul in the hope that they go back to their schools and spark excitement for the game. For a handful of promising students there might be a chance to further their cricketing development at a specialist sports university. The national teams are then chosen by coaches touring the schools and universities across the country.

It is eight years since the first coaching camp but development has been slow and the number of schools and universities playing regularly is minuscule. Those trying to grow the game in China are hamstrung by cricket’s dysfunctional governance.

Aside from that $5m grant China gets $30,000 a year from the ICC. This is similar to Panama – a country 1/368th of China’s size – and a world away from the $10m that Zimbabwe currently receives as a full member. The inability of Affiliate countries to shape the game’s future was a concern raised by the ICC’s own Woolf Report in 2012 but subsequently ignored. Instead the unequal arrangement by which three quarters of the ICC’s revenues go to the 10 Test-playing countries looks set to become all the more skewed towards India, England and Australia in the coming years. For China, with no central government support and no corporate sponsorship, this could be crippling. Regional governments offer scraps but the deep pockets of the Chinese treasury remain closed.

One thing could change that and force every province in China to put out a team for the national games.

“The Chinese government has a lot of money but for cricket it’s nothing, because cricket is not in the Olympics,” says Terry Zhang of the China Cricket Association (CCA). “If cricket was in the Olympics, the input into one province – not even region – would be several million dollars. It would make all the difference.”

Olympic status would be a boon for cricket throughout its lesser nations. From Afghanistan to Ireland to the USA to Canada, it would unlock more money and sharpen the focus for developing teams. But it can never happen without India and England on board and, as the ECB chairman, Giles Clarke, told Sport Business last year, Olympic status makes “absolutely no financial sense”.

“To go into the Olympics,” Clarke said, “would mean giving up one of our own tournaments, as well as tours where the home country keeps gate receipts and TV revenue.”

The ACC’s founding mission in China was about helping cricket develop beyond the Test world.

“It was being left to countries to drag themselves up to world level [before] they would be given recognition,” the then ACC chairman, Jagmohan Dalmiya, said at the time. “It should be the other way round. We should recruit other countries and help them develop.”

Dalmiya is now firmly reinstated in the BCCI’s corridors of power and flatly opposes Olympic status. By placing short-term revenue over long-term gain, the senior nations are stalling cricket’s global development.

Nowhere is this clearer than in China, where the most popular sport is now basketball. An estimated 400 million people play it regularly. If cricket grabbed a fraction of that market, it would loosen India’s financial grip on the game and open possibilities for structural reform.

But China’s challenges are more than administrative and financial. Matt Smith is a British-born teacher and cricket coach at an aerospace university in Shenyang, the so-called cricket capital of China. “If you threw money at cricket in China, you’d have to throw more money than the game is worth to make even a dent,” he says. “There is just no understanding. Cricket needs to be anchored to Chinese culture and connected to things people find familiar.”

After seven years he came up with the ideal analogy. “If table tennis is a duel and football a battle, cricket is a siege. The batter is trying to protect his castle from the attacking fielders. Everyone here gets that.”

He has since made more progress. “I used to walk around the campus holding a cricket bat and hear people ask each other: ‘What kind of a racket is that?’ Now, one would reply: ‘It’s not a racket, it’s a cricket bat.’” There is even a 312-page coaching textbook published in Mandarin.

And yet China is coming to the game cold. Where Afghanistan, UAE and Nepal have a cultural affinity with cricket thanks to their immigrant populations, China lacks both. Unlike other Affiliates, its national team is entirely home-grown. Players come from schools and universities, while expats are consigned to club cricket.

“The Chinese like to do things their own way,” says Smith. “If cricket is going to have any traction here, the national team has to be native Chinese.” Zhang agrees: “If a team of immigrants got China World Cup qualification, they would be ignored by central government funders.”

The problem of a national team drawn entirely from students is that their playing careers end when they graduate. The team comes together before international tournaments but is otherwise non-existent. In an emerging country such a flimsy career path is not attractive.

Chunhua Mei was the first captain of China’s women’s team but was forced to give up her international career prematurely. “I was very proud to play for my country,” she says. “But good players couldn’t stay longer because parents won’t allow their children to play without any income.”

Unlike the men the women have experienced some international success. They narrowly missed out at the recent World Twenty20 qualifiers when they lost to Taiwan and, as hosts, finished fifth out of eight at the 2012 Women’s T20 Asia Cup.

There could be more to come. The eastern region of Linhai has warmed to cricket, with two stadiums already approved for construction there, and with a total of three turf pitches they will be eligible to host international tournaments.

In 2006 China’s aim was to play Test cricket by 2020. The ambition was admirable but unrealistic. “That was some time ago,” Zhang chuckles. “Our one goal now is to move from challenger to elite level in the Asia Trophy.”

That is less glamorous perhaps but more practical. Yet it would be foolish to discount China’s desire to succeed. “Once they fix a plan China are very good at achieving,” says Aminul. “They look at countries like Sri Lanka and Pakistan and say: ‘If they can be world champions, why can’t we?’”

Sahil Dutta is a freelance cricket writer.

This article first appeared in the March 2014 issue of The Cricketer.

china should not look at it as just a medal opportunity