Cricket at Kathmandu South Asian Games
The news from Kathmandu is encouraging. Cricket will be a Medal sport at the South Asian Games ( SAG) in March, 2019. The return of Cricket to the SAG was greeted with broad smiles of the National Olympic Committee officials Suresh Subramaniam ( President), Maxwell de Silva ( Secretary General) and Bhuweneka Herath ( Director General of Sports Development, Ministry of Sport) who met Games officials in Nepal’s capital last weekend.
At a meeting of the South Asian Olympic Committee, it was decided that Cricket and Paragliding would be added to the roster, for the March 9-18 SAG in Kathmandu.
While Paragliding will be making its debutit was brought in by Nepal organisers, to promote tourism in the country- Cricket has already taken off, having been part of the 2010 SAG in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
India, the subsequent hosts, did not include Cricket. But now it is back in the Twenty20 version for both Men and Women. The Men’s competition will be limited to Under- 23 players, with countries able to include 3 senior players. The Women’s competition will be for Senior players.
Subramaniam and De Silva were full of smiles, simply because Cricket has proven its winning credentials at multi-sports Games. At the Incheon Asian Games 4 years ago, Sri Lanka’s Men’s team won Gold ( defeating Afghanistan in the final), while the Women won Bronze. These were the only medals won by Sri Lanka at the 2014 Asian Games.
Unfortunately, Sri Lanka will not be able to defend its title in Jakarta next month, as the Indonesian organisers have dropped Cricket from the medal programme which includes 40 sports. Cricket is alien to Indonesia. But this did not deter the Chinese from including it at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, when Cricket made its debut.
“We are pleased that Cricket is back at the SAG next year. It is sad that it will not be a Medal sport at next month’s Asian Games in Jakarta, which was expected, but we can now look forward to a good outing in Kathmandu,” says Subramaniam.
The 13th edition of the regional showpiece will feature 27 Sports: Athletics, Archery, Basketball, Boxing, Badminton, Cricket, Cycling, Fencing, Football, Golf, Handball, Judo, Karate, Kabbadi, Kho- Kho, Paragliding, Shooting, Squash, Swimming, Taekwondo, Tennis, Table Tennis, Triathlon, Volleyball, Weightlifting, Wrestling and Wushu. Before you ask, Kho-Kho is a traditional Indian game of Tag played by 2 teams of 12, with 9 on the field.
During their short stay in Kathmandu, Subramaniam and De Silva inspected work on the Dashrath Stadium which will host the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games. Work has to be done on the VIP enclosure, the synthetic track, floodlights, scoreboards and sound systems among other facilities. It is understood that the Chinese government has agreed to support Nepal with infrastructural development, so that, Kathmandu will be ready in time to host the Games.