Nepal fans enliven Hong Kong T20 games but can city draw cricket crowd regularly? Coach Simon Willis says results upturn is a start
- Hong Kong thumped Nepal on Saturday with a destructive innings from Babar Hayat, before Sunday’s meeting falls victim to rain
- Coach Simon Willis says he and players have responsibility to build a ‘winning team that hopefully the region is proud of, and people want to come to watch’
Head coach Simon Willis says Hong Kong’s cricketers are playing to “inspire the next generation”, after improving across the board in the first year of the Englishman’s reign.
Hong Kong have won eight of their past nine completed T20 internationals, and on Saturday beat Nepal by 73 runs following some pyrotechnics from Babar Hayat, who bludgeoned 13 sixes in a 49-ball innings of 110.
Two October matches against Nepal, who will compete in this year’s T20 World Cup, ended in lopsided defeats. A meeting between the teams on Sunday, to begin a tri-series also featuring Papua New Guinea, fell victim to grotty weather after only eight overs.
The rain falling from a slate-grey sky did not dampen the enthusiasm of around 100 Nepal supporters, who made every ball feel like an event. Around 200 had attended Saturday’s match, but Hong Kong Cricket’s hopes for twice that figure through the gates at Tin Kwong Road Recreation Ground a day later were dashed by the cold and wet.
Willis said it was “great” to sample a boisterous cricket atmosphere in Hong Kong, but admitted trying to attract more local support was a difficult task.
“Some of that is out of our control,” he said. “All we can control is what happens on the field, and trying to develop a winning team that hopefully the region is proud of, and people want to come to watch. I think the two are very much linked.”
Hong Kong lost opener Martin Coetzee to the first ball of Sunday’s match against Nepal, but moved to 43 for one before the first rain interruption after five overs. The players returned for three more overs, during which captain Nizakat Khan lifted Pratish Gharti Chhetri over long-on for six, before losing his off bail to the pace of 18-year-old Gulsan Jha.
The hosts were nicely poised on 65 for two when conditions that were more Manchester than Mong Kok intervened. Both Nepal and Hong Kong play Papua New Guinea on Tuesday, with the tri-series final set for Wednesday.
“[Previously] we were getting convincingly beaten by Nepal, so Saturday’s result shows how far we have come,” Willis said. “We are learning from our experiences, and being more ruthless under pressure.
“The exciting thing is that we are growing as a team, we are not always reliant on the same people. The guys are being far more responsible about their cricket and their development.”
Willis has qualification for more major and second-tier tournaments on his to-do list.
“We are here to inspire the next generation, that is 100 per cent our job,” he said. “That is why I work further down the pathway, with the under-16s and under-19s, when I can.
“The programmes going forwards will be more hands-on. The board is doing everything possible to improve facilities and opportunities abroad for these players.
“I want to grow the game in Hong Kong and provide as many opportunities as possible for anybody who wants to play cricket in this region.”
