Africa holds key to crickets future

April 29, 2002 by neil manthorp

Neil Man­thorp — 29/04/2002

Like it or not crick­et remains some­thing of an eccen­tric odd­i­ty in the eyes of most of the worlds nations.

In order for the game to become ‘glob­al’ and there­fore sur­vive, the fear­less pio­neers who have bat­tled so hard for crick­ets recog­ni­tion are going to have con­cen­trate on some unusu­al areas.

Fol­low­ers of such events as the under-15 World Cup, under-19 World Cup and ICC Tro­phy will already have become used to the odd strange name pop­ping up in the results columns — Fiji and Tibet come read­i­ly to mind.

But while Asia and the far east undoubt­ed­ly pro­vide fer­tile ground for expan­sion, the mass future of the sport undoubt­ed­ly lies on the African con­ti­nent. And the man that has done more to lay the foun­da­tions of that future may nev­er receive the recog­ni­tion he deserves.

South Africa’s Hoo­sain Ayob is the ICC Devel­op­ment Man­ag­er for Africa and he was in Namib­ia recent­ly for the six-nation tour­na­ment involv­ing Cana­da, Hol­land, Kenya, Zim­bab­we ‘A’, Sri Lan­ka ‘A’ and the host nation.

While cer­tain dig­ni­taries from the ‘estab­lished’ crick­et play­ing world strolled between Wind­hoek’s three main grounds mak­ing con­de­scend­ing procla­ma­tions about how “good” it was for Africa to be stag­ing such an event, Ayob could be for­giv­en for shak­ing his head in dismay.

“I can’t even stay here for the whole tour­na­ment, there’s too much else going on,” Ayob explained. “I have to be in Botswana for a five-nation, under-15 tour­na­ment involv­ing Namib­ia, Lesotho, Malawi and Zambia.

“Then straight after that we have a senior inter­na­tion­al quad­ran­gu­lar in Lagos — the West Africa cham­pi­onship — between Gam­bia, Sier­ra Leone, Ghana and Nige­ria. Sier­ra Leone have won it for the last two years,” Ayob explained.

Nige­ria, inci­den­tal­ly, has applied to the ICC for Asso­ciate Mem­ber­ship and is almost cer­tain to be grant­ed it with­in six months. “They have a pop­u­la­tion od 120 mil­lion and crick­et is tremen­dous­ly pop­u­lar,” Ayob enthused.

If that does­n’t sound as though Ayob has enough on his plate, try this: “In the last six to 12 months I have received requests for devel­op­ment assis­tance from Ethiopia, Libya, Egypt, Rwan­da, Sene­gal, Mali and Gabon.

The game of crick­et is shed­ding its colo­nial past on this continent.”

It is indeed. And rarely can there have been a more excit­ing prospect for the future of the game.