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dar-es-salaam
Today Tanzania, tomorrow the world
By Will 2 years ago, at the start of October, 1 Comment »
In the highly unlikely event you are bored by the upcoming India and Australia series, turn your attention to Tanzania. Dar-es-Salaam is hosting a hotchpotch of cricketing outposts in the World Cricket League Division 4. It’s not as pointless as you might think: the top two are promoted to Division 3, from which the winners can then go onto qualify for the 2011 World Cup. There’s rather a lot at stake.
Have a read of my preview at Cricinfo, and keep an eye on the site as we’ll be covering it quite extensively.
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While the giants do their worst, the minnows are scrapping for attention. India and Australia are about to reopen some old wounds, and probably create a few new ones, but elsewhere in the world – in the dusty outpost of Dar Es Salaam – the lesser-known cricketing colonies are facing off in Division Four of the World Cricket League, and the stakes are increasingly high.
Ponting v Harbhajan this is not. Yet for all the stereotypes – yes, Jersey is more famous for its prized potatoes; Afghanistan is war-torn, and surely Hong Kong are populated entirely by double-barrelled-named expats? – the WCL is an increasingly important development phrase for Associates and Affiliates. The top two teams from Division Four proceed to the third division, whose competition is to be held in Argentina in January. And the finalists from that, if you’re still following, are given the chance to qualify for the 2011 World Cup, hosted in Asia. They may only be semi-professional at best, but that only adds to the Boy’s Own feel of it all.
Afghanistan, Fiji, Italy, Jersey and Tanzania join Hong Kong in the seven-day tournament, and their coach, the former Leicestershire and England batsman Aftab Habib, is itching to get going. His side are the current Asian Cricket Council Trophy holders, and though the experience of playing in the Asia Cup was chastening, it was a vital wake-up call.
“I am quietly confident,” Habib, who is 12 months into a three-year contract, told Cricinfo. “A lot of the teams here, Jersey and Afghanistan, are pretty strong teams. If Afghanistan can wake up on the right side of the bed, they will be very dangerous and with Jersey they’re just well organised.
“Having played a lot of cricket in the UK and occasionally playing in Jersey, I imagine they’ll be very well disciplined, and some of them have played county cricket. They’ll be tough. The majority will be hard to beat, but a lot depends on the quality of the wickets here and how they perform. They look flat and slow and may not last a day. It’s who performs on the day who will win.”
Clichés are no less prominent in Associate cricket, but Habib has a point. This is Dar-es-Salaam, not Durban. Its curators cannot call on gleaming new mowers and their outfields are more likely to have sown root vegetables than years of meticulously prepared clay soil.
“You have to look at the facilities of Hong Kong. We don’t have a lot of grass wickets to play on, and being an Associate team you have to bear in mind you have to be very patient with what goes on. It’s not like a major international team; you have to be patient and you do hit your head against the wall a few times.”
Habib is appealingly optimistic about Hong Kong’s chances in the immediate future, yet for all their ability – he is adamant two of his younger members have the chance to play county cricket – they lack the uninhibited flare of Afghanistan. Notoriously confident – their former coach, Taj Malik, threatened to throw himself into the Atlantic if they didn’t win Division Five – their ambition apparently knows no bounds. It is hard not to be charmed by a collection of cricketers, many of whom are refugees, whose country has been savaged and ravaged by war; whose belief is unwavering almost to the point of naivety. Yet they continue to win, and win well.
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