Amsterdam Diary: Rains Keep Players Indoors

Javed Akhtar, Arab News

Rains have been playing havoc with the Videocon Cup tri-series cricket tournament at nearby Amstelveen. The first two matches of the event were badly hit and in fact the second one involving India and Australia was abandoned after being reduced to 32 overs per side. It was the same story yesterday as persistent drizzle and a few heavy showers kept the players indoors. The Australians had to cancel their scheduled net practice at Utrecht and the Pakistanis had to abandon the idea of going for physical exercises at the VRA cricket ground, the venue of the tournament. Ganguly in Big Demand Indian skipper Saurav Ganguly has been in great demand by the media. He has been most accommodating by giving time to almost everyone who approaches him. At the Hilton lobby, he was first interviewed by ESPN’s Gautam Bhimani. He then immediately went into an interview with two Australian print journalist. Barely time for lunch and he was again in front of the camera. This time it was the Indian channel Aaj Tak which has both Hindi and English channels and Ganguly has apparently signed a contract to speak exclusively to them. After that he found time to talk to India’s leading photographer Pradeep Mandhani who wanted some quotes from him on master batsman Sachin Tendulkar on whom he is planning a table top pictorial book to coincide with the record of highest number of Test centuries. Cricket 51st Among Sports in Amsterdam Simon Cook is the Associated Press correspondent covering the Videocon Cup. He also teaches a myriad of subjects at the Utrecht University, including English and journalism. He is a keen cricketer himself. Sitting next to me at the media center, he started talking about the sport in Amsterdam. He said there were about 3,000 active cricketers in Holland though the official record puts the number at 6,000. “Well, all those who are members are counted though some of them may be over 80 years of age. However, the correct figure is about 3,000,” Cook told me. He also made an interesting revelation. “In one recent survey to find out the popularity of various sports played in Holland, cricket came a lowly 51st,” Cook said. I wonder which are the 50 other sports that are more popular in Holland than cricket. Also, with the amount of rains they have here, it will be a big surprise if any matches are played to full quota and completed.