TAJIKISTAN

In 1997, at the end of Tajikistan’s messy five-year civil war that followed the break-up of the Soviet Union, Indian students and exiled Afghans began playing tennis-ball cricket in the capital, Dushanbe. Locals noticed the similarities with suzi musi, a traditional Tajik bat-and-ball game, and joined in. There are now eight men’s and two women’s teams affiliated to the Tajikistan Cricket Federation, and a Pakistani tape-ball community pining for entry. The hotbed is Shahrinaw, 50km west of Dushanbe, where cricket is played at municipality grounds and an orphanage. The TCF will have to hurdle several obstacles to expand cricket in Central Asia’s poorest country: internet use is rare, with access to social networking sites cut off at the whim of the government. And around a million Tajik men are drawn to Russia every year for work, in order to feed their families and prop up their country’s fragile economy. So it may be women that do the heavy lifting. Assadullah Khan, a former Afghanistan player now coaching in Tajikistan, has declared that, in two years, his all-Tajik women’s team will be the best in Asia. In July, Tajikistan played Afghanistan in a three-match series in Shahrinaw – the first women’s international games in each country’s history. The Afghan team made the journey north across the border with the sponsorship of a private NGO, as women’s sport was considered too sensitive an issue for Kabul. The Afghans, clad in headscarves, won 2–1. James Coyne, Wisden 2013

TRISTAN DA CUNHA

News travels slowly from this South Atlantic island, but the first match for ten years took place there in January 1995 through the initiative of a local official, Alan Waters. The coir matting once used as a surface had long since disappeared, and it was not safe to play with a cricket ball on the concrete, so a rounders ball was used. Some of the older islanders could still handle a bat but were no longer sufficiently co-ordinated to take catches. However, with 60 children among the 300 islanders, Waters saw his chance and ordered a Kwik Cricket set from England. He was also hoping to arrange matches against passing ships, but the cost of adult equipment is prohibitive. British missionaries originally helped the game thrive: among the Victorian pioneers was Edwin Dodgson, Lewis Carroll’s brother. The game was also played regularly in the 1950s when the matting was laid at a spot called Hottentot Fence, but that era ended with the volcanic eruption of 1961 which forced the island to be evacuated. Peter S. Hargreaves, Wisden 1997

TURKEY

The Turkish museum on the Gallipoli peninsula that commemorates the 1915 campaign contains an ageing photograph entitled Kricket Oynuyor. Anzac forces are shown playing cricket on Shell Green, a modest, flat basin secured at a cost of many lives. Despite the “ground” being overlooked by Turkish guns – hence the name – those shown in the photograph appear to be playing with typical vigour. On Anzac Day 1998 (April 25), there was a dawn service at 5am, the time the original landings took place. A commemorative match was then arranged for Shell Green between the Anzacs and the Rest of the World. Hundreds of young Australians and New Zealanders sought to play for the Anzac team. The Rest of the World was more difficult to finalise, and it is not known whether it was to include any Turks. Sadly the heavens opened and the match was abandoned before a ball could be bowled. Anthony Bradbury, Wisden 1998