The Hindu : Sport : Cricket makes its mark in China

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Thursday, Jun 26, 2008
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Cricket makes its mark in China

Karachi: China might conjure up visions of the Great Wall and lip smacking cuisine. How about China and cricket? Does the twain meet?

Yes it does and according to Rashid Khan, former Pakistan fast bowler, cricket’s formative steps in China has been brisk and steady. Rashid should know. He is the head coach of the Chinese cricket teams cutting across age groups and even the sexes.

The Chinese women’s team reached the semifinal of the Asian women’s cricket tournament in Kuala Lumpur recently and the under-15 and under-19 teams have done reasonably well in the tournaments at Thailand for emerging Asian cricketing countries, said Rashid.

The current goal of the Chinese is to play well in the Asian Games at home in 2010.

“They want to give a good account of themselves in the Asian Games at Guangzhou and being hosts they automatically qualify for the championship. The talent is there and what I observed is that they are good in bowling with nice clean actions and good in fielding.

“However in batting they do have some technical problems. For instance most of them have switched from baseball to cricket and obviously gripping the bat can be an issue,” said Rashid. — Principal Correspondent

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