The Cricket Family

[R W S]

Three new members have joined the ICC (China, Isle of Man & Mexico) - here's the full list:-

[Richard Jenkins]

China joins in the cricket family with Mexico and the Isle of Man.

China, Mexico and Isle of Man have been accepted into the ICC, and are the newest affiliate members. This increases the number of ICC members to 92 countries. While 10 can play Test cricket, 27 are associate members, while 55 are affiliate members.


China welcomed India's support in its bid to secure affiliate membership of the International Cricket Council and said it will look to have "bilateral exchanges" with India on the cricket field to give the fledgling game a boost in the country.

"We have noticed the very friendly attitude of the ICC on China's affiliate membership issue. We also warmly welcome the Indian Cricket Board (BCCI) president's statement that India will propose China's affiliate membership in the ICC," Director General of China's Sport General Administration Hu Jianguo said.

"We are speeding up the preparation work for securing the affiliate membership of the ICC," Hu added.

BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya said recently that India would propose China's name for affiliation to the ICC when the game's world governing body holds its annual general meeting in London later this year.

Hu said China would seek assistance from India to train its players.

"We lack professional cricket players, coaches and umpires. We also know that India is very advanced in the game of cricket. China should learn from India not just in the field of software but also cricket," he said.

"I hope we will have more bilateral exchanges with India in the field of cricket which would help us improve our cricketing skills," he said.

"We will seek assistance from major cricketing nations to help us train our young students."

It is believed that cricket was introduced in China around 1860, but the game has been played by expatriates mainly in the Chinese capital Beijing and the communist giant's commercial hub Shanghai.

With the number of expatriates in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou growing at a fast pace, Hu hoped that the foreigners living in these cities would also help China learn the basic skills of cricket.

He said China supports further development of cricket in the country and some of the international schools in major cities have shown keen interest in developing the game.

Regarding China's affiliate membership of the ACC, Hu said the China Cricket Association, which is in the process of being established, will speed up the work and become part of the Asian cricket body at an early date.

Hu acknowledged that cricket as a sport has just taken roots in China, the world's most populous nation but efforts were on to develop the game.

However, Hu, also a member of the Chinese Olympic Committee, said all Chinese sporting bodies were currently concentrating fully on the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Pakistan has already offered assistance to China, with training and coaching facilities to prepare its national cricket team. Of late, the Chinese government has made a coordinated effort to make cricket a mandatory sport in certain regions of the country, and it plans to put China among the top rank of teams by 2020. The country is also boosted by the fact that in a few days' time, it will become a part of the Asian Cricket Council.
As I understand it cricket at test level can be played by ten countries , and ODI's by everyone else.(affiliates and associates) I think.
I think China will be an interesting addition.Certainly ambitious.

http://sport.independent.co.uk/crick...p?story=535669 Henry Blofeld's take on this.

Mexico could also be intersting as the american pro cricket league gets underway today.

Isle of Man could be like Scotland or Ireland eventually, playing in the 'English'(perhaps British now?) county system


Imagine in 2020 if China play Mexico in a test match. Fascinating stuff. If Bangladesh can do it why not!!

[kiran]

Its great that game cricket is being played all over the world.
Seeing football, the world most popular game, there are around 30 odd nations wich play a very good soccer game at international level compared to crrickets 8 to 10. And its been story for years
One odd country like Kenya has come up reasonably well in ODIs
But there don't seem to be any progress in test cricket..
I think this process of spreading the sport should be more speedy. and much much more effective

regards
kiran

[Richard Jenkins]

Asia looks set to dominate cricket , with India, pakistan , bangledesh ,Sri lanka all as test nations, and China joining in, not to mention Nepal . The ICC are talking about moving from Lords, and whilst I suspect many a 'Major Huffington puffington from Tonbridge Wells' will be spitting out there tea this morning it makes sense to move to India but :

The ICC has delayed a decision on shifting its headquarters to a new location because of a last-gasp move by the England government to keep it within the country. Malcolm Speed, the ICC's chief executive, said that India was among the contenders for the new headquarters, but the decision would have to wait for a while.

"A last-minute intervention by UK Sport, on behalf of the UK government, to keep the ICC headquarters in England has forced us to defer our decision," Speed said. "We are flattered by the Indian offer but the choice of venues is between London, Dubai or Malaysia as the ICC does not wish to relocate to a full-member country."

Mani added that the decision would take financial benefits into consideration and that because of the late offer, the decision would take more time. "To accurately assess this information, the ICC Board opted to defer the decision on the future location of the ICC headquarters to its October meeting."

The MCC no longer runs cricket (although responsible for the 'laws') and the ICC could be located anywhere (probably in some tax haven for financial reasons) and the English have to wake up to the fact that although they 'invented' the game it's no longer their propery( was it ever their property? ) and Asia is now the cricket continent. No other continent has so much cricket played on it. The ICC could be a major force in world sports and the members of the ICC need to concentrate on what's good for the game of cricket instead of building empires or political agendas.
Cricket should be a world sport, perhaps as an alternative suppliment rather than a competitor to 'The Great God Football'

True the American market will bring in money, and perhaps this is why the Anglo Saxon world seems so keen to promote American cricket, perhaps as a voice to ally their views. If America becomes an afiliate or even associate member, the ICC could perhaps be a truly balanced thing.

Even in the next few days, the ICC and the IWCC wil merge, changing the make up of cricket administration.


Personnaly I wish that the best things are done for cricket reasons rather than political or power /empire bulding reasons.

Asia's cricket growth since the 1950's has been spectacular. Which continent will be next?
Africa?
America?
Europe?

And what will cricket look like in ten, twenty or thirty years? Five years ago would 20/20 even have been considered?

Cricket . An evolving sport.