2010 Asian Games: Dazed and Confused China welcomes cricket
The 2010 Asian Games fired up in Guangzhou, China on 12th November, Friday. Unlike the display of fire and dragons during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games two years ago, the southern city of China showed the region’s most distinctive
feature of water which was incorporated in the performances.
Thrilling games, Harmonious Asia- the vision of this year’s games is indeed looking to unify the Asian countries by including debut games especially the game of the subcontinent, cricket.
As the game’s officials claimed that all the tickets for the cricket matches have been sold, the debut of the game was creating enough buzz in the cricket world.
However, the 6,500 seat stadium was roughly filled with 500 people- most of them students from the local colleges and schools. The Guanggong Cricket Stadium was resounded by Chinese and English announcements and the spectators gave away occasional clapping
and hooting for their teams.
The debut of the game saw the women’s Twenty20 tournament kick off amidst a slowly filling stadium. As China’s women took to the field, the small gathering cheered for the women in red as they got ready to take on the women of Malaysia. http://www.senore.com/Cricket/China-c40996 clinched an
impressive 55-run victory as they restricted http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Malaysia-c2949 to 61 for 8. China showed immense promise with their stroke play mixing some new and orthodox styles into their play.
However, the game left the crowd a bit bewildered as they could not comprehend the rules of the game. Although a relatively easier format was serving as a debut for the sport, but the crowd could not understand the cricket jargons. One spectator admitted
after the match, “I couldn’t understand when the game started, but towards the end I did learned few rules such as runs and wickets.” Some people in the crowd thought that the game was boring and they lost interest in the game from the start. China loves basketball
and gymnastics and the country are fast adopting football as their national game.
The Asian Cricket Council (ACC) felt that it is important for the game to do well in order to vouch for an entry in the Olympics. China being a very lucrative market in terms of broadcasting rights, the ACC felt that the Asian Games are the perfect stage
to generate enough knowledge about the game. However, it didn’t seem like that as even the local authorities hardly had any clue about the sport. The volunteers at the stadium also admitted that the crowd had gone confused just like them.
The commentary like “one run to China” and “boundary for Malaysian team” sounded weird for a regular cricket commentary during a cricket match. The crowd waited in between every boundary of the home team while the announcer declared “cheers for China.” As
if on cue, the crowd suddenly broke into claps.
However, the crowd seemed to get bored by this trend as they went really quiet after some time. This could be because of the fact that the teams were unknown in this professional sport. If http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 was playing, the crowd could be better receptive
to their play. But after India pulled out of the event, Pakistan or http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Bangladesh-c747 are the early favourites to win the women’s gold medal to be held next week.
The ACC spokesman termed the start of the game as “highly symbolic” and officials from established cricket playing countries would help the game to catch up in China. He said that the ACC are looking for a bright future for the game in the next ten years
as there are a lot of new players that are slowly but surely getting interested in the domestic circuit.
The officials are hopeful that once the people get to understand the game, they would surely get addicted to it. It is expected that the crowd meter would rise when the men’s tournament starts in the next week.
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