The Future of Malaysian Cricket

To predict what lies in the future for The Malaysian Cricket Association a crystal ball would be very useful. On the global scene, administrators are desperately seeking ways to market the sport with current thinking bouncing between, "is there too much cricket; or not enough". The ICC Trophy competition has been split into two divisions and the Asia Cup could include the winner and the runner-up of the qualifiers in that competition. Earlier speculation in this publication (The Malaysian Cricket Association Annual 1998), suggested that Malaysia could get Test status via Asia. Speculating again it could be possible to achieve that aim by winning division two of the lCC? Who knows, but anything is possible in 20 years, especially when change is the name of the game.

On the local scene there is intense pressure to continue the utilization of cricket facilities produced at great expense for the XVI Commonwealth Games. Cricket has been mentioned as a possible future sport in the SEA Games and even the Olympics. There was a time a few years ago when club cricket declined because of the lack of grounds and facilities on which matches could be played. The last two national coaches had not a lot of praise for Malaysian batting and cited the lack of experience on turf wickets. It is significant that in the last Carlsberg-MCA league competition there were six centuries scored, twice that of recent years.

The development of junior cricket in Malaysia is a priority for the MCA and must be a talent base for the future. Already one of our best boys has been offered the opportunity to build his career in England and probably play in Tests for that country. This is a complicated issue and will not be solved easily, but then much can happen over the next few years of cricket here.

An exciting development for 1999 is the debut of the u-19 league. MCA President Tunku Imran said at the presentation of a generous sponsorship cheque from Pepsi, "Future national players will come from this competition, especially since the world youth tournament will be held biennially. This means we have to come up with a new team every two years".

Rules change and ideas are tied to need, but apart from the development in competitions, playing standards, quality venues etc. one vital need which should be addressed by the MCA is the promotion and marketing cricket in Malaysia. When nobody comes to see a tournament featuring some of the best cricket players in the world and don't count KL'98, that was a component of a much larger excitement, then we have a 'Brand' problem, which needs a major marketing programme to encourage the public to want to watch cricket.