In Asia Cup 2022, it is India Vs Hongkong today .. .. and a match involving minnows generally is lacklusturous – Rohit Sharma was out on 4.5 score 38/1 and KL Rahul got out at 12.6 with score at 94 ! - it cannot even be called dull for the opposition bowling was so ordinary and KL Rahul scratched for 39 balls ad despite hitting 2 sixers, made 36 !! - no other batsman have had this luxury of struggling to get back to form and perhaps he deserves to be dropped in the next match for this innings along !!
In 1975, Indians themselves were minnows having played only 3 ODI games, their 5th was in the 1975 WC – where they bowled out the opponents for 120 – Bishan Bedi returning magical figures of 12-8-6-1 – Gavaskar 65 and Farokh Engineer 54 scoring them without loss of a wicket.
1975 was indeed a historic year for cricket; a great innovation it saw the first ever (Men’s) World Championship tournament in the game's history. In the Finals, Aussies bowling attack was in the hands of : Dennis Lillee; Gary Gilmour; Jeoff Thomson, Max Walker, Greg Chappel and KD Walters; WI had B Julien, Andy Roberts, Keith Boyce, Vanburn Holder and Clive Lloyd himself – yet 291 + 274 runs were scored.
The India match referred was against East Africa, which was a representative team of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. EA became an associate member of the ICC in 1966 played amongst themselves and were joined by Zambia in a quadrangular tournament played annually between 1966 and 1980. India toured East Africa in 1967 and played a three-day match against Kenya . In 1975 EA and Ceylon were the two non-test teams invited to play in the tournament. Of the 14 men squad of EA, half were from Kenya. The matches were played as 60 overs per team in traditional white clothing and with red balls. They were all played during the day and, hence, started early. One of the most bizarre batting efforts in one-day history was made by Sunil Gavaskar. England scored 334 (4 wickets, 60 overs) with Dennis Amiss (137 from 147 balls, 18 fours) scoring the first ever World Cup century. India was captained by Srinivasan Venkatraghavan. Needing 335 – Sunil Gavaskar made 36 not out off 174 deliveries. Solkar made 8, Anshuman Gaekwad made 22, Gundappa Viswanath 37, Brijesh Patel 16 not out,. Indians would certainly like to forget this match.
Hong Kong captain Nizakat Khan chose to bowl against India, who made one change to their XI, resting Hardik Pandya and bringing in Rishabh Pant for their second group game in Dubai. This is Hong Kong's first match at the 2022 Asia Cup; they made it to the tournament by winning all three of their games in the qualifying event in Oman. Today in the 20th over, 26 runs were scored. Sky played some unbelievable shots and later told that he had not practiced those strokes but when young, used to play lot of rubber ball cricket on hard surfaces. Haroon Rashid 1st ball was slammed over deep backward point and the next disappeared over deep point – Suryakumar Yadav had scored 50 in 22 balls (54 to be precise). Hongkong needs 193 now to win !
Seeing him play and KL Rahul struggle, one wondered whether both innings were played in the same ground against same opponents !!
Hong Kong is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta in South China. With 7.5 million residents of various nationalities in a 1,104-square-kilometre (426 sq mi) territory, Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places in the world. Hong Kong is also a major global financial center and one of the most developed cities in the world.
Hong Kong was established as a colony of the British Empire after the Qing Empire ceded Hong Kong Island from Xin'an County at the end of the First Opium War in 1841 then again in 1842. The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 after the Second Opium War and was further extended when Britain obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories in 1898. British Hong Kong was occupied by Imperial Japan from 1941 to 1945 during World War II; British administration resumed after the surrender of Japan. The whole territory was transferred to China in 1997. As one of China's two special administrative regions (the other being Macau), Hong Kong maintains separate governing and economic systems from that of mainland China under the principle of "one country, two systems". Originally a sparsely populated area of farming and fishing villages, the territory has become one of the world's most significant financial centres and commercial ports The city has the largest number of skyscrapers of any city in the world.
Could not trace the National anthem played before today’s match. Understand that Hong Kong, currently a Special Administrative Region of China, has never had its own anthem. As a colony of the United Kingdom from 1842 to 1997, it used the anthem of that country as its official anthem, and after control was given to China, the Chinese anthem has been used to represent Hong Kong. Hong Kong has played in every ICC Trophy/World Cup Qualifier tournament, with the exceptions of the 1979 and 2005 events. In April 2018, the ICC decided to grant full Twenty20 International (T20I) status to all its members. Therefore, all Twenty20 matches played between Hong Kong and other ICC members after 1 January 2019 will be a full T20I.
With regards – S. Sampathkumar
31st Aug 2022.