Cricket festival returns after five-year lapse

A previous event organized by the Macau Cricket Association

An eight-team cricket tournament is returning to Macau after five years of absence.

On July 23, eight teams of six adult players will vie to become  tournament winner, contesting a total of 15 matches to be hosted at Hou Kong Middle School. The teams hail from Macau, Hong Kong and Guangdong Province, with the home groups  sourced from the membership of the Macau Cricket Association (MCA).

MCA is the sole organizer of the tournament. A group of non-professional cricketers, the 35-strong membership of MCA is composed of mostly nationals from South Asia – namely India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

MCA president, Adnan Nasim, told the Times yesterday that the event is returning to Macau after a five-year absence that he attributed to a lack of resources.

He said that just one date was available at the playing fields of Hou Kong Middle School in the next six months – “It was that Sunday or never”- and being a small, amateur sporting association, MCA does not have the financial and logistical backing to roll out large-scale events on a frequent basis.

“Awareness of cricket in Macau is very low because locals don’t get the chance to experience the sport,” said Nasim. He put this partly down to the lack of specialized grounds, which discourages locals from taking up the sport and makes it less likely that overseas teams will agree to travel to the city for friendly matches.

The MCA president wants to bring cricket back to schools to nurture an interest in the sport among the youth. It is a strategy that worked well once before, during MCA’s outreach program with The International School and the Anglican College, but Nasim said that limited resources led to dwindling interest.

“The problem is that there is nowhere to continue playing cricket when the students graduate,” and so they lose some of their ambition, he said.

Cricket is a ‘bat-and-ball’ game, popular in some parts of the world, but mysterious and confusing to others.

In cricket, two teams rotate through an equal number of phases of batting or bowling, known as ‘innings’.  There are a set number of balls that are bowled during each innings, defined by the number of ‘overs’. An over refers to the bowling of six consecutive balls, after which the bowler must swap with another player.

The first team to bat accrues a number of runs during their innings, which is contested by the opposing team once the second innings begins. The team that scores the most runs wins the match.

Some forms of cricket – most notably test match cricket – can see matches span five or more days. As a result, cricket is not usually considered an apt sport for single-day tournaments that involve multiple teams.

For the Macau Cricket Festival, organizer MCA is limiting each match to just 40 minutes, which will include both teams’ innings. Each side will have just five overs, expected to last four minutes each. Then the teams will rotate.

The tournament, which will run from 9 a.m. until 7 p.m., is yet to attract sponsorship, although each of the eight teams has been asked to contribute a MOP600 entry fee. Nasim said that MCA is currently seeking a benefactor to provide drinking water during the day’s activities, but they are strongly discouraging competitors and spectators from bringing food, as they aim to keep the facilities clean.

He also said that MCA contacted the Sports Bureau to invite a representative to the event, but as of Sunday they had not received an answer.