The Unknown Sport in Argentina ..Cricket

The Unknown Sport in Argentina ..Cricket


Football may be the national obsession in Argentina and rugby is gaining popularity since the national team came third in the last world cup but cricket remains relatively obscure. While providing one of the top national football teams in the world, the cricketing equivalent is at the other end of the spectrum. This is not down to lack of talent or desire by the players, but is to do with the lack of opportunities to play in the country and therefore the small number of players which are able to compete. The International Cricket Council (ICC) recently announced that nations with such a structure will not be allowed to compete in the next world cup

As is the case with any sport, it is ideal to start playing cricket from a young age, allowing the maximum amount of time for learning and improvement. In Argentina there are only seven schools which offer the game to students, all of which are based in Buenos Aires or Rosario.
James Drummond, director of Playargentina Sport and Travel, points out that, “as a result, there is not a platform at school level to market the game. Many schools do not have staff who know the game or are interested in the sport, so it never has a chance. Where there are staff who have a passion for cricket, St Georges South is the best example, the students play in their masses.”

National under-15 team, in a match against Chile.
However, schools are not the only way into the game. There are a number of sports clubs which offer cricket, fielding teams at various levels, such as under-13, under-15 and under-19. The majority of the players are Argentine, but there are a few clubs formed by expats living in Buenos Aires, although these teams tend to be based in Capital Federal, the centre of the city, where most foreigners live.
“There is a lot of talent but it lacks depth of players. As a result, when there is not a lot of competition between teams, better players are not pushed, so they never reach their potential. Also, when squads are made up of the bare minimum of players, competition for places in the side is never under threat so clubs struggle to enforce discipline. Players tend not to train as much as they should and this has a knock on effect in terms of match day performances, especially against overseas sides that are better prepared,” explains Drummond.

With such a small cricket-playing community, the advantage is that players have a greater chance to become involved in the national set-up. The captain of the Argentina national team, Esteban MacDermott, explains that there are teams for all of these three age groups, a women’s team and then Argentina A, followed by the first team, Argentina.

“It is a problem always playing against the same players, because we get to know each other. We know how each person plays, and what to expect from each game. For that reason, the tours are so important to us, the teams that come here with new opposition, or when we have the possibility to travel outside the country and play against new teams. Fortunately this happens with all the categories,” says MacDermott.
The Argentine teams play mostly in regional tournaments throughout Latin America, which may not provide the fiercest opposition, but certainly offer a good level of competition for the development of players. The country competes in the ICC trophy, the Americas Championship and the World Cricket League. Deciding which countries Argentina likes to play, MacDermott says, “we consider our rivals to be the Cayman Islands, because we play at a similar level. Playing Canada, US or Bermuda is always a little bit more difficult and they usually beat us. With the Cayman Islands we have beaten them a few times and they have beaten us a few times so they are special games for us because of this.”

Gary Savage at bat
The dream of any sportsman is to participate in the world cup of their sport. The 2011 cricket world cup recently took place in India, but Argentina had failed to qualify for the event. Upon the termination of the tournament, the ICC announced that in the following world cup, to be held in Australia and New Zealand in 2015, only the ten test-match playing nations (Australia, India, Pakistan, South Africa, New Zealand, England, Sri Lanka, West Indies, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh) will be competing. This means that Argentina will not even be able to attempt to qualify for the most prestigious tournament in the sport.
“All the associate (non-test-playing) nations are seeing what they are able to do to reverse the decision. Definitely, without being able to play against the top level teams, there is less impetus to develop the sport. The smaller teams would not have a place to compete to try and improve. It may not be so much the case for us, although in the future hopefully it would be. If not for us, there are other teams, like Ireland, Scotland, Canada and Holland, who have competed many times at a good level. Not always, but many times yes. They play games against the top ten which are very even, whereas England recently lost to Sri Lanka by ten wickets, so they cannot say that when the top ten play amongst ethemselves they are always at the same level, whereas when an associate team plays they are not. In the recent world cup, Ireland beat England, while Holland were very close to doing that as well. Ireland won in the last world cup against Pakistan. There are games between associate nations and test-playing nations which are very competitive. I think that it is a shame that they are denying that,” says MacDermott.

The issue has previously been discussed by the governing bodies of international cricket, but it came as a bit of a surprise to MacDermott and his team mates. “They have been talking about it for a while and during the tournament there were many commentators and ex-players who agreed that the number of teams competing in the world cup needed to be reduced. It seems to me like a fairly selfish decision by these ten countries, without thinking about the other teams. At the same time, all the other sports are trying to increase the number of countries which play, a clear example being rugby, with which the world cup carries on expanding, and although there are more uneven matches, more teams are able to take part. This is the only way for teams to improve in the future,” he says. “Argentina is now going to be incorporated in the rugby Tri-nations tournament. Maybe Argentina will not win all their matches, but it was the same with Italy when they joined the  5 Nations tournament; they were always losing, and then in the recent tournament they beat France. It is a question of accustomising oneself to playing at this level and to continue improving.”

Beyond the disappointment of being denied a route to the next world cup, there is much to be happy about regarding cricket in Argentina. A project started 18 months ago in villa 21, a slum in the south of Buenos Aires, encourages youngsters to take up the sport and has proved to be a success. Having initiated the idea with the organiser of a sports club, various members of the national team advised the coaches on how to train the boys and then left the club to develop itself. Making regular trips to the club to offer assistance and see how things are going, MacDermott is happy with the way in which it has progressed.

Alejandro Ferguson driving

“During winter we have matches between all the clubs, and we invite the club from villa 21 to participate, therefore bringing another team. The children integrate with each other without any trouble. In the next American Cup for the under-13 level, two boys from this team will be involved. With the under-13s we treat it as a development project, so we do not necessarily select the best players. Rather than pick all the players from one club, we pick players from various clubs. In this way more clubs are involved and we help them to have more exposure to the game.”

Encouraged by the success of the project, MacDermott talks about expanding the idea. “We started this program a year and a half ago, and we didn’t want to try too much at once. We wanted to concentrate on this, see how it functioned, and then maybe go on from there. We wanted to take small steps and not lose sight of what we were trying to achieve. Now we are looking at the possibility of opening a new place, because the first one has proved so successful.”

Cricket pitches are notoriously hard to maintain and a feature of cricket in Argentina is that most of the matches are played on artificial wickets. MacDermott explains, “there are three grass wickets, but the problem is in the preparation and maintenance of the pitch. The people here do not have the know-how for preparing a cricket wicket.  Therefore it is difficult to maintain the quality of the pitches. The people who do it have no idea of the sport. Obviously we explain to them how to do it, but we have to keep an eye on them to make sure that they do it well. The easier solution is to play on Astro Turf. Also the majority of the clubs share the pitches with other sports, such as hockey and rugby.”

Most Argentines are unaware of cricket, let alone that they have their own national team. This low level of recognition is not helped by the government’s attitude towards the sport. “We do not receive any support from the government. We have been trying to get them to acknowledge us for a while, to recognise us as a sport, so that we can receive funds and things like that, but, no. The government of Argentina doesn’t have a strong relationship with sport in general. It is not like in other countries where they support sporting initiatives. Therefore, the small amount of subsidies which are available are distributed to the more mainstream sports. We have been trying to break into this group of sports which are helped by the government. Any help is more likely to come from the city government of Buenos Aires as opposed to the national government, but we are moving forward, gaining attention,” smiles MacDermott.

Things have progressed since the first match against Chile, for which the team had to travel to Santiago by crossing the Andes mountains by mule in a three day trek. The Marylebone Cricket Club, arguably the most influential cricket club in the world, recently suffered their first defeat against Argentina in about 70 years. More and more children are being introduced to the game and clubs are expanding. While Argentina struggles to accept its exclusion from the world cup and continues in its persistent search for new players, MacDermott and his fellow cricketers continue to play the game which they love.

www.argentinaindependent.com/life-style/...-sport-in-argentina/

Elvita cricket has pretty much gone to the dogs.    Haven't qualfied for any ICC tournament in ages....