Elk Stopped Play

As the handover of control from Britain to China grew ever closer, cricket in Hong Kong changed too. While the traditional centres, Kowloon Cricket Club and Hong Kong Cricket Club, with their magnificent facilities, continued to play a major role, a growing number of ethnic Asian players joined in. In particular, junior cricket has taken off, and hundreds of young Chinese players have been introduced to the game. The Hong Kong Sixes, the colony’s most famous event, moved from the Kowloon club to the huge Hong Kong stadium in 1996. This caused much debate and the event lost some of its old flavour; but the move had to be made if the event was to grow in international stature. It was a big success, despite the effects of Typhoon Willy on the first day, and West Indies beat India in the final. We can now look forward to further big matches in the territory and, as a result of the interest shown in trips to China and Japan by Hong Kong coaches, growth throughout the region. We can foresee the day when the Hong Kong team is made up of Chinese cricketers, and China is a serious player within the game. Russell Mawhinney, Wisden 1997

A contender for the most ambitious international cricket venue conceived in 2011 was the St George’s Oval, carved out of a disused Hungarian quarry. Surrounded on three sides by cliffs and on the fourth by tiered flowerbeds made from old tyres, it promises stunning elevated views and a unique clifftop spectator experience. St George’s also claims to be the world’s first eco venue, made exclusively out of natural or recycled materials and operating on solar power. The quarry, in Iszkaszentgyorgy, 80km south-west of Budapest, was purchased in June and transformed into a cricket ground in six months by a passionate group of volunteers headed by an Englishman, Andy Grieve. The plan is to complete the development this year with a grass square and a clubhouse. St George’s should be as busy as any ground in a Test nation, with a packed schedule ranging from the local league fixtures to international tournaments. Its principal function will be as the base for the Hungarian Cricket Association’s ambitious development programme, with cricket workshops held in a local castle. This should help Hungary’s drive for ICC Affiliate status. The national team did their cause no harm in 2011 by successfully defending the Euro Twenty20 title, on home soil at Szodiglet, the biggest ground in Central and Eastern Europe. Tim Brooks, Wisden 2012

Alas, the extraordinary story of St George’s Oval didn’t have a happy ending, at least not in cricket terms. “Unfortunately the other investor pulled out,” Andy Grieve told me, “and now I am using the land for golf and vegetables.”

Despite this setback, Hungarian cricket continues to make great progress. The game has only been going in organised form since 2007 and a meeting instigated by Grieve in a Budapest Irish theme pub (appropriately named after the Nobel prize-winning author and first-class cricketer Samuel Beckett). The Hungarian Cricket Association was formed, a league comprising six teams established, and by 2010 cricket in Hungary had progressed as far as the national side winning the Euro Twenty20 tournament in Skopje, Macedonia. They beat Russia by three wickets in the final with a ball to spare after Sufiyan Mohammed anchored the total with a brisk 82, including five sixes in one over, and thrashed the 17 runs required from the final over from five balls in gathering darkness. Hungary retained their title the following year at their brand new Szodiglet Oval ground outside Budapest.

This is no mere expat plaything, however: there has been a concerted effort to introduce the game to Hungary’s Roma community in an effort to promote the mixing of communities, while in the city of Debrecen a group of Afghans has set up their own team. Sadly, they won’t be playing at St George’s Oval anytime soon unless they bring their golf clubs. Hungary’s own Field of Dreams may not have materialised but, with ICC Affiliate Member status achieved in 2012 and participation among all sorts of Hungarian communities on the rise, it’s a setback the game there can probably take on the chin.