It was all set as a festive year 2015 for cricket with the 50 overs world cup being held in Australia and New Zealand.It was a beginning of a show from some unexpected nations like UAE, Afghanistan and Ireland.
Also watching Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, it marked an indication that cricket is not just limited among the test playing nations. It is an age of globalization so cricket is being learnt, taught, nourished and most importantly played all over the global periphery. Then it was a real chance for the Associates in the qualifiers later on in Ireland and Scotland where we saw some wonderful young talents in the scene.
Their way of approaching the game slammed a big hammer on the concept of making cricket just a sport of 10 test playing nations. So here we bring you some inspections regarding the growth of few Associate nations.
PNG and their Cricketing Structure
We begin with the most impressive side with all smiles, happiness across the 22 yard and around the cricket field. Yes it’s PNG. One could merely forget the celebrations, commitment and effort they put on their game.
Studying their cricketing structure gave us a clear idea that they work hard for their cricketing growth. For Bermudians (this is what they loved to be called). Most of the country’s sport governing bodies keep focusing on Island sports as well as beach sports.
Here comes few PNG Bermudians with cricket clubs, mass of talented youngsters and played some excusive cricket. Their cricketing structure is not that bad though. They have some serious cricketing governing management with Chairman, Deputy Chairman, Treasures, Director and Affiliated Associations Representative.
Their governing bodies are active and aim on keeping a busy cricketing year. Although a lot more work is yet to be done. Like all other emerging strong cricketing nations, they have a strong school cricket with their cricket being divided into Highland Region, Islands Region, Momase Region and Southern Region.
Their domestic circuit consists of NCD, Marobe, Team central, Southern, Highlands, CPNG Colts. Most of the players into the bigger state are mainly from the Eastern and Western Highlands.
Hong Kong and their Cricketing Structure
We move further ahead and now inspect into Hong Kong’s Cricketing structure. They have a very refined cricketing structure. They have a very strong cricketing course and coaching training.
They also have a very established association of cricket Umpires and scorers. Only 4% Asian population out of 7 million and yet has such a strong, highly competitive team at International level.
A defined structure of cricket that was defined in 2013/14 by Hong Kong Cricket Association (HKCA) with 13 posts in the higher administrative class and 16 posts in the staff and managerial class is still maintained with a lot of new reforms. It has a linkage between HKCA Board and National selection panel regarding the selection of all Hong Kong national squads and teams.
The main role of this cricketing structure of Hong Kong is that it advices the NSP (National Selection Panel) of their roles and responsibilities. It also determines and announces the criteria for team selection.
New Jersey and their visionary cricketing structure
The most impressive young boys were surely from New Jersey. Their confidence was a result of a proper cricketing structure in New Jersey. They have 6 grounds with 7 turf pitches all across their small territory. Adding to that, they have 7 artificial pitches, including 5 “Stand alone” artificial pitches most of them suitable for junior cricket. They also have formed a farmer’s cricket club with their own private grass pitch pavilion.
With winter chilling and cold, challenges around they have already accepted the challenge of winter, already built 9 sports hall for coaching activities and competitions. Out of the sports hall, four of them have 4 nets, 3 with 2 nets and 1 with 1 net.
The local governing body, coaching and umpiring associations( both with education programmers and tutors), a development officer and junior cricket bodies run schools and youth cricket as well as tour to U.K. and abroad. They aim at providing smart cricket choices and producing talented youngster as Jonty Jenner in New Jersey.
Nepalese cricket and their weak cricketing structure
Among all the team mentioned above, Nepal has the most fan following with millions of Nepalese watching a game logging into the cricket website cricinfo.com as presented in their stats since 2014, the golden year in the history of Nepal when they were qualified for the first major ICC events in Bangladesh.
The weakness has been their cricket body named as Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) which has been very passive in the talent hunt in a country full of passionate cricket lovers.
They conduct regional level games once in a year and the selection process is so weak that the same players gets the trophy as well as spot and the emerging players are limited by giving them a consolation paper certificate.
Similarly school cricket, college and university cricket is very weak in Nepal. The Eastern Part of the nation with a gem like Mehboob Alam, the only bowler in the history of International cricket to take all 10 wickets in a 50 over match against Mozambique has been out of sight for management, coach as well as cricket governing body in the country.
With the potential cricketers getting into an age factor period, benches are not created to replace the big shoes going to be left by these legends of Nepali cricket.
With U- 19’s every year having mixture of tournaments in every venue, Nepal has a huge challenge to create a strong upcoming future set of players.
They only have one International standard Ground in the Tribhuvan University premises that too is not maintained well and currently traumatized with Earthquake that had a huge impact in the recent T20 qualifiers.
The Sports council, CAN as well as government must come with a vital plan of building some good cricket stadiums in a naturally gifted country like Nepal to produce a lot more valuable assets that could change the fate of the cricket for this beautiful country.
Scotland cricket and their cricketing strength
Scotland is the strongest team regarding cricketing structure. They have 32 clubs in the senior National Cricket League.Future Structure Groups have a huge contribution in their development. Cricket Scotland believes in more localized cricketing structure. They aim to conduct league season every year.
They have formed domestic cricket committee with premier divisions competing for their place in the national side. The clubs and regional associations would watch closely the uprising young talents.
They have a strategic plan since 2012, aims at basically focusing players’ positive attitude towards game. They aim at providing the development of entire clubs in the country. Gradually they have a plan that got module since 2011 to 2014 due to which the results showed clearly in 2015 in ICC T20 Qualifiers.
