Chinese cricketers win their first national championship tournament

India could soon face another cricketing rival in Asia, especially in the Twenty20 version - China, though the sport in the country is still in its infancy.

London, Aug.14 : India could soon face another cricketing rival in Asia, especially in the Twenty20 version - China, though the sport in the country is still in its infancy.

Cricket in China is only two years old, but in this short time, a Chinese team has won its first national cricket championship.

A Shenyang Sports Institute team defeated a Shanghai Fudan University team by seven wickets, reports The Times.

Two years ago there were no cricketers in China. Now, there are enough for schools and universities from Guangzhou in the south to the industrial city of Shenyang in the northeast to field 115 teams.

A total of 59 men's teams and 19 women's teams took part in the tournament - an increase from the 37 men's teams who played regional matches last year.

The first finals were played under rare blue skies in the usually polluted capital and on the grounds of Tsinghua University. In the absence of a pavilion, the players waited on the boundary, sipping iced water under red Coca-Cola umbrellas.

Calvin Leung, director of the three-year-old Chinese Cricket Association, dismissed concerns that the rules of cricket might be confusing in a nation where the game is so new.

"Among all the new sports, cricket is the one that has developed the fastest," he claimed.

Young players, most dressed in cricket whites, appeared to have taken to the game with gusto. In the absence of an appropriate translation, they repeatedly shouted "Howzat!".

The scattered spectators, from other teams, cheered on the players and cried out "hao qiu" or "good ball."

Zhang Yufei, 15, from Beijing Zhichunli High School, played in the China team at last year's Asian under15 championships.

"I'm crazy about cricket. I train three times a week at school. My greatest wish is to play against foreign teams and defeat them," he says.

To make the game more attractive to young Chinese players, the Chinese Cricket Association keeps play to 20 overs a side, enabling a match to be completed in three hours. That keeps young players keen, said Leung.

Former Pakistan all-rounder Rashid Khan has been coaching China's national team of under15s for just under a year. He is confident that the young players would be ready for international games within five to eight years - although he was less optimistic about their chances of winning.

He said China needed to do more to foster a greater sense of cricket. He recommended more televised matches.The British first brought cricket to China in 1858. After the 1949 Communist takeover, cricket disappeared and was not revived until the 1980s when the British and Australian embassies played a match on the frozen lake at the Summer Palace in Beijing.

Peter Manuel of the Asian Cricket Council wants to see Chinese cricket come in from the cold.

ANI