China catches cricket bug

By Louisa Lim BBC News in Beijing

China is close to joining the Asian Cricket Council, but who is actually playing cricket in the world's most populous country?

"Whenever I tell people I play cricket, they ask me what cricket is," says Jia Liyu, a talkative 30-year-old whose sporting hobby makes her very unusual in China.

International Sixes tournaments have helped generate interest

That is the normal reaction in a country where few people have ever seen the sport.

Cricket in China is mainly played by expatriates, who have organised International Sixes tournaments in Shanghai for the past four years.

But a small handful of keen locals, like Jia, are beginning to get involved.

There are, however, obstacles to popularising the game.

"It's a cultural thing. Cricket is foreign and a very strange game anyway. It uses a hard ball and people are scared of it," says Scott Brown, who has helped introduce the game at the Shanghai Football Club.

Their method involves introducing players to an indoor version of cricket, played with a soft ball.

This has proved popular, especially with female players like Jia who enjoy the teamwork and the social side of cricket.

The plan is that the indoor cricketers will eventually graduate to the outdoor version of the sport.

Surprisingly China has a long history of cricket.

We're already getting calls from businesses - China is such a huge market Ashraful Haq Asian Cricket Council

The first recorded match was played in 1858 in Shanghai, between a team of officers from the HMS Highflyer and a Shanghai XI.

Photographs also exist showing 19th century cricket matches in other areas, such as the southern city of Chongqing, but interest seems to have waned since then.

Lu Zhihua is the official charged with changing that - he is chairman of China's Cricket Association.

"We need to show some matches on television, so people can understand the game," he says.

He is hoping for help from the Asian Cricket Council and China's membership application is expected to be endorsed at an ACC board meeting in February.

Formal acceptance will follow in June at the next Annual General Meeting.

The ACC says their first foray into China is likely to be a schools programme, introducing cricket in a number of secondary schools and universities

The head of the ACC, Ashraful Haq, is confident that the top-down nature of sport in China should make his task easier.

Interest in cricket is increasing gradually in China

"The government is interested because they feel they can excel in cricket," he says.

"If the Chinese government backs something, they can make people interested."

He sees China's membership of the ACC as opening up exciting and lucrative possibilities.

"We're talking about 1.3bn more people in the cricketing world. Commercially it makes a lot of sense. We're already getting calls from businesses who want to be sponsors, and be involved because China is such a huge market."

He visited China to inspect the cricketing facilities last September, accompanied by Danny Lai from the Hong Kong Cricket Association.

Lai points out that the widespread ignorance about cricket in China could be turned to the advantage of a game which is dogged by image problems abroad.

He said: "The negative thing is that cricket is totally brand new in China. But that's the positive thing too. Because it is new, you can decide how to project the image of cricket.

"You can position it as a professional sport. If you play well, you can get fame and a Mercedes."

At the moment, there are no professional Chinese cricketers.

Lu says the best start might be re-training retiring volleyball players and he is confident a Chinese XI might exist by the end of the year.

But all agree it is likely to be a far longer wait before a Chinese team strap on their pads at Lord's.

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