World Beyond the Cup - Tete-a-tete with Cricket Brasil

DHCF: For most people Brazil means Football but what they don’t know is that Cricket was introduced in Brazil before Football. Cricket has a rich history in this football obsessed country. Tell us a bit about it.

CB: Cricket in Brazil began in the mid-1800s in Rio de Janeiro, during a period when a portion of the city’s population was British or of British descent. By the early 1860s, a number of cricket clubs were in operation. Beginning in 1860, as part of a much-needed beautification programme for the city, Emperor Dom Pedro II created several new parks, including a large grassed area in front of his daughter Princess Isabel’s house, who is a big figure in our country’s history, and this space eventually became the country’s first proper cricket ground, and hosted cricket, tennis and bowls matches for many years. Princess Isabel and her father were frequent spectators, and often called upon to present trophies to the winners.

From that moment to this century, Cricket has been played in several capitals and a street Cricket game called “Taco” was created. You can easily see taco being played in small cities by children – and most of them will not even know that it is related to Cricket!

Coming to the new era of the game in Brazil, the national Associação Brasileira de Cricket (ABC) was founded in 2001, and Brazil became an affiliate member of the ICC in 2003.

We started grassroots projects for Brazilians in Brasilia and mainly Poços de Caldas in 2011. The projects have been a success and we  have more than 3500 children playing cricket on a weekly basis, and that has led to a U13, U17 male and female teams and a Senior Male and Female teams playing on T20I status since 2018.

DHCF: With Brazil now been granted T20I status and International cricket action on for the national teams, what does it mean for the future?

CB: It is already being a big change. Since 2018 we have invested more on our women’s team and 2020 they were the first team from Brazil to have central contracts.

That is part of the plan on improving the pathway on the female high performance side and taking this team to ICC tournaments.

Winning, the Aussie way

8th March 2020 will forever be a historic day in cricket, women’s cricket to be specific. Not just because it was the final of women’s T20 world cup, but because of an attendance of 86,174 people at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). It was the highest attendance for a women’s cricket match globally and the highest for any women’s sport event in Australia. It was a day of unprecedented enthusiasm and passion for women’s cricket. However, something not so unprecedented was an Australian domination in the final of a world cup and the Australian women’s team winning the T20 world cup for the record 5th time in last 6 attempts.



There was a lot of hype about this final in India also. The fact that India had reached the final of women’s T20 world cup for the first time was exciting enough, but 8th March being the International Women’s Day and birthday of Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur made the media report more prominently about this final than it ever did before for a women’s match. India had convincingly defeated this Aussie team in the tournament’s opening match, with young sensation Shafali Verma taking apart the experienced Megan Schutt in the first over with 4 boundaries as well as Poonam Yadav spinning a web around the Aussie batters with 4 wickets. India came into the final on a winning streak throughout the group stage and it was touted as their best chance ever to beat the Australians in their own den and win the cup for the first time.

But what happened in the final was totally anti-climactic, from India’s point of view. Australian openers Alyssa Healy and Beth Mooney batted the opposition out of the match. The pressure of chasing a big score in a world cup final in front of a massive Aussie crowd proved too much for the Indian team and they capitulated to be bowled out under 100 runs. Unfortunately for the Indian fans, it was a painful reminder of another day in March, 17 years ago. Australian men’s team decimated the Indian team in the ODI world cup final on 23rd March 2003 in Johannesburg in a similar fashion. Being a 15-year-old fanboy at that time, that defeat was heart-breaking, on par with the miserable loss in the 1996 world cup semi-final defeat against Sri Lanka. But since that day, if there is anything we have been used to seeing, is an Australian team that plays like a well-oiled machine on the cricket field. The Australian team did have a tough time in the early years of this decade when their team was rebuilding, but they recovered sooner that other teams would have hoped for.



But what is it that exactly makes the Australian teams almost invincible in the finals of a world event? Is it the fault of opposition players, like when Indians dropped the Aussie openers in the initial overs? Or is it the luck of Aussie captains winning the toss and making a mockery of the opposition? One can’t argue about this as in the 4 ODI men’s world cups that Australia has won from 1999 till 2015, they won the toss only once in the final (2007) and in the 5 T20 women’s world cup wins, Australia won the toss only twice in the final (they in fact lost the only time in 2016 after winning the toss). So, the toss is not a deciding factor. As far as the below par performance of the opposition teams is concerned, the pressure of the final match is on both the teams. Then why does an Australian team triumph in the finals, more often than others?

Poonam and Shafali: Beauty and the Beast

"Poonam has become a favourite adjective in the skippers' dictionary. Whenever a match is in a fix, skippers call Poonam to address it. And, she has always used her weapons with sheer flair and twisted games in favour of her team," said Reema Malhotra, former India leg-spinner and now a commentator about Poonam Yadav the 28 year old Indian Leg Spinner.

Yes, she indeed repeated her act once again today when Alyssa Healey was running away with the match with her team at 67/2, chasing 133 for a win in the India Vs Australia T20WC group match. Beginning with the scalp of Alyssa Healey, Poonam turned the match head over heels in a matter of next 7 overs. Though women's Cricket cannot match the men's game in terms of power, dynamics and skill, the artistry of players like Poonam makes it worth watching. She was giving unbelievable flight to the ball, ball after ball. Some of her leg breaks went up in the air, stood there for some time as if reluctant to come down and then left the batters bamboozled on the descent.

The Googly has become the most dreaded weapon in her armory, especially because she is more consistent with the Googly than her stock leg spinning balls. Poonam now is India's highest wicket taker in T20 Internationals and was decorated with Arjuna Award in 2019. Sidelined by injury for most part of India's preparations for the 2020 T20WC, Poonam had ceded her place to the relentlessly consistent Radha Yadav. But the Team management decided to rope in Poonam for the X-Factor or should we call it Y-Factor ? If not for Keeper Tania Bhatia missing a tough catch, Poonam could have had a Hat trick today. This incidentally is the third time she's missed a Hat trick.

Is it a Team Sport?

Just when you think you have seen all the bizarre scorecards, this comes up.

Image Source: ESPN Cricinfo

In an Under-19 Women's Game in South Africa, Mpumalanga's Shania-Lee Swart scored 160 unbeaten runs out of her team's total of 169 runs. All her fellow batters scored a grand total of O (Zero) between them with Extras contributing 9 !!!

This was more than enough to win the game for Mpumalanga as their opponents Easterns could muster only 127 with Swart who also opened the bowling picked up two wickets.

An innings which single-handedly took her team to victory. Must have been some performance.

Nishant Kumar for DieHard Cricket Fans

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