The current standing of cricket in Myanmar is reflected in the zero amount of coverage most local journals give the cricket World Cup now being played in the West Indies.But on a tree-fringed field, within sight of the magnificent Shwedagon Pagoda, hordes of youngsters brought out bats, leg pads, gloves and stumps. For an hour and a half, boys and girls threw themselves into a knockabout version of the game, while slightly older youths practised their batting and bowling skills.
For 9-year-old William Phyowai, his first taste of cricket was a revelation. “It’s great!” he enthused. “It’s fun!”
For Aye Min Than, who has been playing for two years, the appeal was more cerebral. “Cricket’s different from other sports,” the lanky 21-year-old bowler said, smiling. “It boosts your mental sharpness. It’s a game for the mind.”
To read more about cricket in Burma, see “Yangon wakes to unusual clatter of cricket bats“, The Myanmar Times, 20 April – 6 May 2007.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Pig Latin // May 7, 2007 at 12:23 am
I look forward to Burma one day taking on Bangladesh and India in a tri-nation series! Whilst lamentably there was that colonialism spat, the British did come up with some decent games for forgiveness!
2 Sawarin // May 7, 2007 at 5:11 am
Football, polo, and cricket were not British inventions.
‘Mind’ has no sex.
3 Pig Latin // May 7, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Polo? Sure Wikipedia does say that it was infact the Persians who invented it. But British elites have been stealing from the Persians for a while! ‘Football’ was invented by the Mayans.. but the British did take out the human sacrifice element, no?
However Wikipedia does say that Cricket was invented in Sussex in the 15th C. You don’t mention Rugby either? British! Wikipedia does not lie!
If these games of the ‘mind’ have no sex, how do you explain golf?!
4 Sawarin // May 8, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Cricket is a contribution of the two civilizations: one sees the joy of body as a way of paying respect to gods (in organization of nature), and another treats numbers (= score) to be the beauty of God’s mind. The English didn’t invent the game, nor did they come up with the rule of the game. People have been claiming too much of originality. Thought and idea do not come from nowhere. Since the Reformation, I can’t think of any Saxonian/Normanian inventions that have not stood on the shoulders of pre-modern giants of other civilizations, not even chicken tikka masala, circa 1930.
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