This Saturday, during the brief lunch interval at the Hong Kong Sixes, you can see the future of local cricket in action. More than 100 kids, a small part of an ambitious development programme run by the Hong Kong Cricket Association, will be having the time of their lives.
It will not be serious stuff. Mini-cricket is all about fun, taking part and having a swing of the plastic bat or turning your arm over with the plastic tape ball. But local officials hope that from these fun-filled games will emerge talented youngsters who one day, not too far in the future, will represent the SAR on the international field.
Who knows, if everything goes well, maybe in 10 or 15 years, these Chinese youngsters may be rubbing shoulders with the Wasim Akrams and the Jonty Rhodeses of the time. 'One day, we hope some of these local kids will represent Hong Kong not only at the Sixes but also on the international stage like at the ICC Trophy or ACC Trophy,' says Gavin Erasmus, one of the architects of the ambitious project.
We label it as ambitious because cricket is still in its rudimentary stages of growth in Hong Kong. While the development programme was begun almost a decade ago it has only started to take pace in the past three of four seasons. The game once alien to Hong Kong Chinese is slowly becoming more familiar. And one of the biggest attractions is the fact that it is a non-contact sport.
'It is not so fierce. You don't require strong muscles to play cricket and there is no body touch. It is a good sport for Chinese children,' says Antoine Ng Chi-sing, chairman of Genius Cricket Club, one of the Cantonese Community Sports Clubs set up a couple of years ago.
The crux of the development programme is the Primary Schools Playground League. Started three years ago, it has mushroomed from 16 school teams to a vibrant 50 teams taking part this year. It has grown so big, so quickly that original sponsor Zinoki Ltd pulled out this year, allowing supermarket chain Wellcome to take over for the next three years.
