The Shorter Wisden 2013 (82 page)

Their patron insists on a sustainable legacy. “It’s pretty obvious the ‘Stanford way’ is not the way to do it,” grinned Marin. “If the main guy disappears for
whatever reason, there’s nothing left. So we’re trying to organise institutional sponsorship and embed it into the local system. I believe the game won’t survive in Romania if
it’s confined to expats. We must create a local tradition.” Marin’s money and influence have allowed Romania to pursue projects unimaginable for other countries. Moara
Vla
ă
siei, a jaw-dropping ground 30km from Bucharest, is destined to be the envy of all non-Test-playing nations. Three years in the making, it has been lovingly
curated by an experienced British groundsman, Alan Lewis, who has trained up a team of local groundstaff to cut, scarify, roll and mark eight strips. There are ambitious – and fully costed
– blueprints for a cricket academy and indoor school at the site. Assuming the square survives the harsh Wallachian winter, Moara Vla
ă
siei will open for play
in Easter 2013 – as the only grass wicket between Denmark and Abu Dhabi.

J
AMES
C
OYNE

ST HELENA

A vast fundraising campaign on St Helena came up with the £24,000 needed to cover the costs of sending the island’s cricketers to their maiden international
tournament, ICC Africa Division Three in Johannesburg – which meant a five-day voyage to Cape Town on the Royal Mail Ship
St Helena
. The squad filled the time by thrashing the
boat’s crew in a series of matches played with a rope ball, then huddled around a TV set to watch
Out of the Ashes
, the documentary about the improbable rise of Afghanistan through
the global pyramid. At a training session, the players hastily applied some green spraypaint to their pads to match the new one-day pyjama kits. Since they had developed a distinct cricketing
philosophy on an isolated island of 4,000 people, it was impossible to know how they would get on. An emotional opening morning answered many questions, as Cameroon were bowled out for 36, with
Dane Leo taking a hat-trick in his only over. The win over Gambia was a father-and-son affair: Gavin George, now aged 57, and David George, 33, each scored 48. Heartbreakingly, the team were beaten
by Seychelles in a super over, and lost by a single run to Rwanda. Three more runs, and St Helena would have been promoted to Division Two.

S
IMON
G
REEN

SPAIN

On September 4, Tariq Ali Awan – a 38-year-old Pakistani expat living in Madrid – emulated the great Sussex stylist Ranjitsinhji by scoring two centuries on the same
day. Opening for Spain in the European Championship Division Two Twenty20 tournament in Corfu, Tariq took advantage of short boundaries at the Messonghi beach resort ground to blaze 150 not out
from 66 balls, including 16 sixes, in a morning match against Estonia. The game dragged on longer than intended, due to the time spent retrieving balls from the neighbouring boccia and tennis
courts, and from a hotel, which suffered a number of broken windows. Tariq returned in the afternoon to take on Portugal, and decided to step up the pace: this time he hit 18 of his 55 balls for
six in an innings of 148. Perhaps wisely, Akbar Saiyad, Portugal’s 66-year-old captain, had chosen to sit it out.

J
AMES
C
OYNE

TAJIKISTAN

In 1997, at the end of Tajikistan’s messy five-year civil war that followed the break-up of the Soviet Union, Indian students and exiled Afghans began playing tennis-ball
cricket in the capital, Dushanbe. Locals noticed the similarities with
suzi musi
, a traditional Tajik bat-and-ball game, and joined in. There are now eight men’s and two
women’s teams affiliated to the Tajikistan Cricket Federation, and a Pakistani tape-ball community pining for entry. The hotbed is Shahrinaw, 50km west of Dushanbe, where cricket is played at
municipality grounds and an orphanage. The TCF will have to hurdle several obstacles to expand cricket in Central Asia’s poorest country: internet use is rare, with access to social
networking sites cut off at the whim of the government. And around a million Tajik men are drawn to Russia every year for work, in order to feed their families and prop up their country’s
fragile economy. So it may be women that do the heavy lifting. Assadullah Khan, a former Afghanistan player now coaching in Tajikistan, has declared that, in two years, his all-Tajik women’s
team will be the best in Asia. In July, Tajikistan played Afghanistan in a three-match series in Shahrinaw – the first women’s international games in each country’s history. The
Afghan team made the journey north across the border with the sponsorship of a private NGO, as women’s sport was considered too sensitive an issue for Kabul. The Afghans, clad in headscarves,
won 2–1.

J
AMES
C
OYNE

USA

Looking for controversial elections, habitual infighting, breakaway governing bodies and on-field talent that soldiers on in spite of it all? Then look no further. The USA
Cricket Association general elections, postponed throughout 2011, finally took place in April, but only after 32 of 47 member leagues were denied the right to vote. USACA presidential candidate Ram
Varadarajan’s 11th-hour lawsuit couldn’t reverse the board’s decision to disenfranchise leagues they considered “not of good standing”. The only non-incumbent voted on
to the board was Kenwyn Williams – who pledged prior to his election to impose a gag order preventing all USACA players and employees from speaking to the media. Six months after he was
elected executive secretary, Williams plunged USACA’s Facebook page into a social media meltdown. Williams was eventually suspended by USACA, before they removed him from the board
altogether. Another consequence of the elections was the formation of the American Cricket Federation, a breakaway group attempting to usurp USACA as the official national governing body. The ACF
staged their inaugural national championship in Los Angeles in October, with eight former USACA leagues participating. The Southern California Cricket Association won the title, and two of their
players were subsequently picked to represent USA against Canada, eliminating fears that anyone playing in ACF events would be ostracised by USACA. The national team experienced mixed fortunes on
the field, finishing 12th out of 16 at the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier, but winning promotion from WCL Division Four. USA’s leading scorer in both events was stalwart Sushil Nadkarni. His
hard-hitting opening partner Steven Taylor, an 18-year-old from Florida who also took part in a World XI match in Pakistan, showed signs he could become America’s first home-grown star since
Bart King toured the UK at the start of the 20th century.

P
ETER
D
ELLA
P
ENNA

With special thanks to Mahendra Mapagunaratne
.

Wisden
always welcomes engaging tales of cricket from improbable corners of the globe. Please contact
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