Hong Kong’s ‘Davids’ dream of a fairytale against the Goliaths
dubai — It might be just another fixture and a regular day at the office for Pakistan and India but for Hong Kong, it will be a watershed moment against two of the heavyweights in world cricket.
The matches against Pakistan and India in the Asia Cup on Sunday and Tuesday will be only their 25th and 26th ODIs in their journey towards the top rungs of the sport. And although it points to a mismatch, Hong Kong coach Simon Cook said that his lads will come back better from the experience.
“It is a bit David and Goliath isn’t it,” said Cook about their twin games against Pakistan and India in Dubai. “But that is what fairytales are made of. We don’t know, India are coming off a pretty hectic tour of the UK so, you never know what might happen on the day. Our players are good enough to have a day out and if we stick together and perform to our best ability, we can walk off with our heads held high, regardless of the result,” he added.
Hong Kong certainly have nothing to lose and plenty to glean from these two fixtures against two of the best sides.
It is a squad that know each other inside out, having come through the age-group ranks and with a young squad with an average age of 20, the prospect of a fine future looks bright.
“It is a young side with an average age of mid-20s. It is a group that has come through together since they were sort of 14 or 15. So, they know how to play with each other and they also play against each other back in Hong Kong so they have a great friendship,” said Cook.
“That is a really good age for our players to start maturing, understanding their own games and how they achieve success and how they keep maintaining and growing. And that’s probably what you are going to start to see now over the next three or four years that this group really start to build and taken momentum and certainly challenge in top Associate cricket and obviously challenging in more World Cup qualifiers and Asia Cup qualifiers,” added the 41-year-old.
Cook also shed a bit of light on some of the players who have been the bright spots for Hong Kong.
“In the batting line-up, you cannot go much past Anshuman Rath at the moment. He’s scoring a lot of runs, he’s just taken over the captaincy. He has been very consistent in the last two years, in his scoring in both 50-over cricket and T20. Babar Hayat is also an explosive cricketer who has had some success in T20 and franchise cricket around the world.
“With the ball, Nadeem Ahmed has been with us for a number of years now and is a fairly steady left-arm spinner. Ehsan Khan, also working in partnership with him and they perform quite a good role in the middle innings for us. And the emergence now of Aizaz Khan and Ehsan Nawaz in the qualifiers is really given us quite a potent quick bowling attack,” said the former Kent and Middlesex fast bowler.
Looking ahead to the Asia Cup, he said: “In terms of what we are expecting here is to try and compete as much as we can. We are effectively benchmarking ourselves against the best in the world. So, it really is a great opportunity for them to get a learning experience as well as maybe causing an upset here or there, we never know.
“One thing is playing under huge pressure, the crowds, obviously the expectation of the opposition to put a big score on us or bowl us out for very little. So, it is sort of dealing with pressure and benchmarking themselves, the speeds that the guys bowl, how hard they hit the ball, the consistency of their strike, all of those things are really valuable lesson for our guys to take and learn and build on.”
Our players are good enough to have a day out and if we stick together to our best ability, we can walk off with our heads held high
Simon Cook, HK coach