Atkinson out to go where his dad could not
Son of one of HK’s best batsmen will skipper team as they bid to reach World Twenty20
His dad Steve Atkinson batted for two countries – the Netherlands and Hong Kong – but could not quite reach the pinnacle of the game by playing in a World Cup. Son Jamie will try to go one better.
Hong Kong, captained by Jamie Atkinson, will leave on Sunday for the United Arab Emirates to take part in the ICC World 8Twenty20 qualifiers. The 16-team tournament is for associate members, among whom are Ireland and Afghanistan, two of the favourites to win one of six berths available for next year’s World Twenty20 in Bangladesh.
Father and son are united in the belief that this time around Hong Kong can make it. If they do, it will be the first time Hong Kong take part in a World Cup and the circle will have been completed for the Atkinsons. It was February 1994 in Nairobi, Kenya, that I first met Steve Atkinson.
Hong Kong were taking part in the fifth ICC Trophy competition to decide which associate member would qualify for the World Cup in 1996 and Atkinson was one of the top batsmen in the team. It was my first overseas assignment for this paper and it was thrilling to watch Hong Kong reach the last eight in the 20-team tournament – the furthest any Hong Kong team had gone. My first brush with “Atko” was when he agreed to take part in a photo-shoot with a horde of Masai warriors wielding their spears.
The idea was that Hong Kong’s top batsman could face anything thrown at him. But there was one big problem: where to find the Masai warriors? The taxi driver I had hired was from a different tribe but knew where I could unearth the famous Masai. “At the market,” he grinned.
"So off we went and bundled three bewildered Masai in their long red robes [with spears] into a ramshackle Citroen, with the promise that they could share US$100 among them if they agreed to my instructions: look fierce and aim the weapons, used to herd cows, at Atko. Atko was then at the tail-end of an illustrious career. He had represented the Netherlands before arriving in Hong Kong and making it his home.