<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a reverential hush from the respectful crowd as Pakistan\u2019s Sadia Iqbal opens the bowling to Bangladesh\u2019s Shathi Rani in the Asian Games women\u2019s bronze medal match<\/a> in Hangzhou.<\/p>\n The sound of leather on willow echoes around the purpose-built cricket ground, which until recently was full of sunflowers.<\/p>\n The atmosphere is more village green than the fever pitch of, say, Lahore\u2019s Gaddafi Stadium, but the few hundred spectators are fully engaged \u2014 even if many admit to never seeing the game before.<\/p>\n Almost entirely Chinese, the crowd \u201coohs and aahs\u201d and clap when a wicket falls, cheer every boundary and then look bewildered when a loud lbw appeal pierces the serenity of the Zhejiang University of Technology (ZJUT) Cricket Field.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t ever see cricket before so I was interested to know more about this sport,\u201d said spectator Huang Dapeng, who runs his own business in Hangzhou.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m starting to understand it a little, but I am really enjoying it anyway.\u201d A few have some knowledge of the game and seem captivated.<\/p>\n \u201cI travelled to Sri Lanka before and a friend invited me to watch cricket, so I became interested,\u201d said Liang Xiaoqian, a travel agent.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I heard it was in the Asian Games I wanted to learn more about this game,\u201d she added, ahead of Monday afternoon\u2019s final between India and Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n \u201cI am enjoying watching. I will be supporting Sri Lanka in the gold medal match.\u201d Others are there just because it is the Asian Games and they want to watch sport, any sport.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the only Asian Games tickets we could get,\u201d said a smiling Jeff Wang, an engineer who was sitting in the stand with his father Wang Hang.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s my first time to watch cricket. It\u2019s unknown to me before, I don\u2019t really know what is going on.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I did hear this game is very famous in South Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n Looking out over the near-circular ground, it is hard to believe that before the Asian Games the pristine mowed grass was a field of sunflowers.<\/p>\n It won\u2019t be getting overgrown after. The newest of the ZJUT campus\u2019s sporting facilities will have life after the Asiad.<\/p>\n \u201cIt will remain forever,\u201d venue manager Li Danlin told AFP<\/em>. \u201cThere will always be cricket played here from now on.\u201d<\/p>\n The university has more than 20 colleges and 80,000 students. They will be taught about the game and encouraged to play, according to Li.<\/p>\n \u201cWe hope that cricket clubs will form and use the venue,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Pakistan head coach Mohtashim Rasheed said it was vital to spread cricket to new territories.<\/p>\n \u201cVery exciting to see the crowds here coming to watch, all Chinese people, that is a very healthy sign for developing cricket in China,\u201d Mohtashim, the brother of Pakistan Test player Haroon Rasheed, told AFP<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a complicated game so we have to develop in China and other countries. The most important thing is to get it into schools.<\/p>\n \u201cI would love to do an exchange programme here to help boys and girls learn the game. They can start small, a shorter version like six-a-side,\u201d added Mohtashim. \u201cFor the older-age kids we could bring it with baseball. I think they like playing baseball and it is similar.<\/p>\n \u201cSwing a bat and hit a ball. That\u2019s a translation that could be made. \u201c<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There\u2019s a reverential hush from the respectful crowd as Pakistan\u2019s Sadia Iqbal opens the bowling to Bangladesh\u2019s Shathi Rani in the Asian Games women\u2019s bronze medal match in Hangzhou. The sound of leather on willow echoes around the purpose-built cricket ground, which until recently was full of sunflowers. The atmosphere is more village green than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7868,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/09\/25152346b9f8cf1.png?r=152920","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u2018Remain forever\u2019<\/h2>\n
\n\u201cIf you could get under-10s playing, then in five years you would see a difference,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n