Cricket neighbor relationships – part 3

Part 3 of my cricket neighbor relationships series...

Cricket neighbor relationships – part 3

Eitan Shai

After some time that I haven't been able to write, and a few other articles, it is time to finish this series. For whoever didn't read the first 2 parts, part 1 discussed the relationship England, Australia and Pakistan has with their neighboring Associates, while in part 2 talked about how West Indies, Bangladesh and especially India neglect their duties to their neighbors. In this article, I will round up the series by mentioning what the last 3 Full Members (excluding Zimbabwe) do on the subject, and then round up the series.

South Africa:

South Africa are, when it comes to providing help, one of the best in the world. South Africa include Namibia in their domestic competitions (where they do well), ensuring that the Namibia players get match experience. South Africa also provide the Namibians with top quality coaches, and invite the Namibian players to the South African academies. With Namibia, South Africa are doing there job.

Rating:

6/10. The low rating will be explained below.

Ways to improve:

The keyword here is money. South Africa have a neighboring country (Zimbabwe) in severe debt, which is so serious that their players are leaving the country. Currently, South Africa are not providing help to them, which is crippling cricket there. South Africa need to start providing monetary support to the region, so that cricket can make a comeback there.

New Zealand:

New Zealand are an interesting case. They don't help their neighbors Fiji and Samoa at all, and, while Australia help promote cricket in the entire region, New Zealand haven't once stepped in to help them. On face value, it seems that New Zealand are totally neglecting their duties, and is damaging cricket in the neighboring countries.

However, they provide USA cricket with a lot of support, and have forged a partnership with USACA which has brought into USA cricket a lot of funds. New Zealand have also played a few matches in USA, which drew in big crowds.

Rating:

3/10.

Ways to improve:

Simple. New Zealand must shift their focus from USA, which is West Indies's job to support, and focus on bringing forward cricket in Fiji and Samoa, and trying to revive the near-extinct cricket in Tonga. If they do that, the cricket world will hugely benefit from it, including Cricket NZ themselves.

Sri Lanka:

their neighbors- no tours, no money, no development and no matches. Basically, they acted a lot like India. However, recently that has changed. Sri Lanka have invited countries like Nepal and PNG to play matches in Sri Lanka against quality opposition, helping their players prepare for big tournaments. Recently, they also started programs to aid grassroots development in countries like Malaysia, the Maldives and China. They had announced that in this year's SLPL there would be a lot of Associate cricketers, including 6 players from Afghanistan, but that plan failed following the cancellation of this year's SLPL.

Rating:

6/10.

Ways to improve:

Keep moving in the right direction. Include a Nepali and a Malaysian side into the domestic season. When allowing Nepali players into their development programs, provide them with a way to get there. All these little things add up, and if Sri Lanka implement them, they will benefit from it themselves also.

So now I have summarized all the Full Member's efforts, or lack of effort, to grow the game. The expected question is- are the top Associates themselves helping the weaker Associates? The only associate country that really tries to help it's neighbors is PNG. PNG includes players from Vanuatu in their domestic competition, which gives the Vanuatu players in question vital match experience. In addition, PNG sends players to the Australian competitions for EAP teams, and by doing so raises the level of the team.

Another country that tries to help its neighbors is Kenya. Kenya have tried to include teams from Tanzania and Rwanda in the East Africa Premier League, but they refused. If they would have been included, it would have been a great opportunity for them to test their skills against top-class players, and would have been a big boost for Tanzanian and Rwandan cricket.

Well, that concludes this series. Thank you for all your support, and stay tuned for my new Rising Nations series.

Eitan Shai