Now, cricket in a ‘rogue nation’

North Korea to play host to teams from Shanghai and Pyongyang to play Twenty20 match

HONG KONG: The North Korean capital Pyongyang will host a one-day Twenty20 cricket tournament on May 2 as part of an initiative by lovers of the ‘gentlemen’s game’ to take it to one of the most reclusive societies on planet Earth.

Two cricket teams from Shanghai, made up largely of Western expatriates who work in China, will travel to the ‘hermit kingdom’ on Tuesday and be joined by a third, Pyongyang-based team, in the triangular tournament. A few employees of the Indian and Pakistani embassies in North Korea will play for the ‘home team’, the Pyongyang Cricket Club, which was banded together barely two months ago.

“We’re really looking forward to this tour,” Shanghai Cricket Club secretary Denzyl Allwright told DNA on Saturday. “It’s a rare chance for us to take our love of the sport to a country where cricket has never been played before.”

Come May 2, Pyongyang’s population, more used to seeing goose-stepping army contingents, will for a change see men in flannels wage bat-and-ball battle. And the only projectiles that will be launched on that day will be cricket balls, not the customary ballistic missiles.

Ahead of the tournament, the teams from Shanghai will hold ‘cricket clinics’ at various venues in Pyongyang to introduce the willow game to the people, says Allwright. The plan to play cricket in one of the most unlikeliest places on earth was conceptualised by Allwright and Shanghai Cricket Club committee member Ainsley Mann.

“We were thinking of tours to places where cricket has never been played before - and of course North Korea came up,” Allwright says. “Some people felt it couldn’t be done, given the challenges. We decided we’d prove them wrong.”

Mann contacted Koryo Tours, an agency that offers guided tours to North Korea. Soon the sporting enterprise gained critical support - and a sponsor - in North Korea: Bryan Clark, who runs logistics firm DHL’s operations in North Korea, came on board. Clark also worked the system in Pyongyang and secured the necessary approvals, and banded together the Pyongyang Cricket Club.

Allwright vehemently denies the tour is motivated by any kind of political considerations. “We’re not politicians, and this is not a political or diplomatic tour,” he emphasises. “We’re doing it purely for the love of the game.

Does he expect the tournament to have any VVIP spectators — in particular, a short, squat man revered in North Korea as “the Dear Leader”, who is rumoured to wear rollers in his hair and has an abiding interest in Daffy Duck cartoons (and NBA cheerleaders)? “We don’t know any of that,” says Allwright.

“As far as we know, we’re going to enjoy a lovely day of cricket. Anyone can come over and watch us.”   venky@dnaindia.net