By Vikneswaran A/L Raman
KUALA LUMPUR (Bernama) -- Cricket, the gentlemen's game, has a huge following in the Indian subcontinent, Australia, West Indies and many other former British colonies.
Despite being the second most popular spectator sport after football, Cricket has yet to see strong interest among Malaysians both on the field and on the spectator bench.
Malaysia still participates in the game and is ranked 26th in the International Cricket Council (ICC) ranking for One-Day International (ODI) among 104 nations, but not yet ranked in the shorter version of Twenty20 (T20).
Nonetheless, the Malaysian team at best can be considered a novice in the game. The team has yet to see any major victory or commendable achievements from its many outings except for the recent SEA Games where it clinched the men's 50-Overs gold and T20 silver as well as women's T20 bronze from the three events contested.
In the recent Asian Cricket Council (ACC) Under-19 Youth Asia Cup, host Malaysia finished in the bottom of Group A. Surprisingly in the event, even war-torn Afghanistan staged an upset against favourites Pakistan, defending champions India and Bangladesh, for its maiden cricket title.
Though the Malaysian coach Suresh Navaratnam had pointed out the national team's below par performance at ACC was mainly because the squad lost more than 11 players due to the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) exams, and those who played were 14-16 years old, certainly more needs to be done.
NO SUBSTITUTE FOR MATCH EXPOSURE
Maybe we can learn from the foreign teams on how to get cricket into the headlines of sports pages in Malaysia, like football, badminton, hockey and athletics.
When this writer asked team captains and coaches during the ACC Under-19 Youth Cup on their observations on Malaysian players and how Malaysia could emerge formidable in the cricket sphere, it is obvious the country\'s cricketers were not on the right track.
India's Rahul Dravid, regarded as the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket, who is now coaching the India U-19 side, said there is no secret formula to become successful other than playing in the matches.
"You need more game and need to gain more experience to know how to handle different situations. The Malaysian boys are good and talented, but they just do not have the experience and high level exposure.
"All and all I think Malaysia did well, they tried their best, did a good job. It is hard for them to challenge the test-playing nations because they do not get as much good opportunities as our boys get, so you got to respect and accept that,? said the 44-year-old, who played for India from 1996-2012.
Sharing the same view was former Nepal skipper Binod Kumar Das, who advised the Malaysian Cricket Association to start nurturing the sports right from the primary school level.
"There is no substitute to match experience. If they keep on playing cricket matches, it will make them match winners. Because academies and teachings will only get them technically sound, but it will not make them match winners," the Nepal U-19 coach said.
INFRASTRUCTURE AND ENCOURAGEMENT
"Apart from the match experience, other aspects to look into is the cricket playing infrastructure and facilities, and encouragement," said Bangladesh U-19 coach Damien Wright.
"To improve the state of cricket, one must ensure the infrastructure is in place and there is a lot of encouragement to play cricket. I think the grounds and things here are magnificent, they got wonderful facilities here.
"Maybe Malaysia needs to develop different competitions here and offer international teams to come and play here. That will give a lot of benefit by learning from them," the Australian who is on his first trip to Malaysia said.
Over the years, Malaysia as ICC's associate member had hosted several international events such as the 2008 U-19 ICC Cricket World Cup featuring players like Virat Kohli, 2012 ICC Annual Conference, Tri-Series between Australia, India and the West Indies in 2006 and the ACC U-19 Youth Asia Cup in 2012 and 2017.
While we may have promising players, it is obvious that the country hosts matches far in between and its participation in foreign tournaments too is limited.
Like said by the Malaysian coach, the weak domestic league too has to be looked into in improving the level of the game in Malaysia. The present scenario calls for a comprehensive rethink on Malaysia's position in cricket.
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MALAYSIAN CRICKET IN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS
According to the Malaysian Cricket Association president Mahinda Vallipuram, with about 600 schools in the country playing cricket and an estimated 20,000 people participating in the sports in various level nationwide, the focus of the national body is to break into world's top 20 in the next five years.
"We have taken several initiatives to develop cricket, which includes scouting and enrolling U-12 players in Bukit Jalil Sports School (SSBJ), make it compulsory for the states to have U-14, U-16 and U-19 club cricket and host an inter-state league for them, besides working closely with the Ministry of Education.
"This year we have introduced Champion Schools Championship to allow the schools participate in national level tournament directly without representing their states, where 96 schools participated. We have also introduced modified crickets like tape ball cricket, a street playing cricket, where the ball will be wrapped with electrical tape, makes the game easier and fun to play, especially to get the involvement of kids aged below 12 and community.
"We are also looking forward to send about 20 to 30 players to play in Indian subcontinent to get match exposure, something countries like Afghanistan and Nepal did to improve. What we hope for next few years is to have more quality players to represent the country in various age group tournament and the national team, as well as more followers for our cricket to close the gap with the world's best," Mahinda said.
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