Hong Kong cricket chief Tim Cutler hopes to win new converts as team play first ever first-class matches on home soil

After a few minutes in Tim Cutler’s company it’s easy to see how the Australian, just 33, beat more than 100 applicants to become the Hong Kong Cricket Association’s first chief executive last April.

His passion for the sport – the left-arm spinner for Hong Kong Cricket Club still has not given up hope of playing for Hong Kong when he becomes eligible in 2017  – is evident, and his sales pitch for its future is convincing.

Hong Kong cricket has had a couple of hugely successful years: they won full one-day international (ODI) status until 2018, almost qualified for the 2015 World Cup and beat Bangladesh in their first appearance at the World T20.

The challenge now for Cutler, who began his career in marine insurance, is to alert the wider public to that success. Cricket has been played in Hong Kong for more than 150 years, but for most it’s still a “gweilo game”, if known at all.

An opportunity to raise the profile comes this month, with the first first-class and ODI matches ever on local soil, as Hong Kong take on Scotland.