A plan to bowl over a nation

Embedding the game of cricket into the Chinese sporting culture or psyche will never be an easy task.

It has no cultural background - outside of Hong Kong - in China; there are only a few venues where the game can be properly played and those matches and/or leagues are primarily populated by expats from places like England, Australia, India and Pakistan who are mainly passing through. So while the competitions, particularly in Beijing and Shanghai, are relatively strong, they are by no means stable.

The Chinese Cricket Association is trying gamely to promote the sport with a limited budget and has implemented programs at about 70 schools, but that is a mere blade of grass on the Chinese sporting landscape.