Michael Atherton thinks IS Bindra, the ICC's principal advisor, will have a tough task promoting cricket in China, which is one of his responsibilities. "China, like Russia, is an inhospitable place and it is likely that Bindra's army will suffer the same fate, falling well short of its target as the first snowfall of winter arrives," he writes in the Times.
China bends its knee to no one where individual pursuits such as diving, weightlifting and shooting are concerned, but it has not yet got the team thing. The Asian Cricket Council's website indicates where the mission to inculcate “shen shi yun dong” (“the noble game”) into the hearts and minds of the Chinese stands: against a population of 1,321,851,888, it lists zero turf pitches, zero cricket clubs, four cricket grounds and a blank next to the name of the national captain.
There are 153 coaches who have a “Level 1” certificate, which allows them “to assist more qualified coaches developing aspects of coaching under direct supervision”, but there is no information on how many better-qualified coaches there are to supervise them. Still it is good to know, under “recent achievements”, that China won the Global Development awards photo of the year in 2005, a sweet, staged picture of three Chinese children playing soft-ball cricket on the Great Wall of China.
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