The success of last month’s triangular one-day cricket tournament in Singapore between India, West Indies and Zimbabwe should give a boost to Singapore Cricket Association’s (SCA) ambitions to become the Sharjah of the East.

In the last decade, Sharjah - which is part of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the Middle-East - has become a major one-day cricketing venue where test playing nations compete regularly in triangular and quadrangular tournament for lucrative money-stakes, while fans around the world are able to watch it on satellite television. UAE is not a test playing country, but hundreds of thousands of South Asians working in the area provide the much needed spectator support and atmosphere for the events.

Singapore is also not a test playing country and SCA admits that it is a long way from achieving such a feat, yet its President Chris Pianca believes that this tiny island nation of 3 million people can become a major international cricketing center.

With the acceptance by the International Cricket Council (ICC) of the Kallang cricket ground here as an official one day venue, SCA hopes that Singapore will now begin to see one day internationals played here on a regular basis.

Pianca is very supportive of the ICC chairman Jagmohan Dalmiya’s globalisation programme and he believes that Singapore could act as the springboard to spread the game to the East Asian countries such as China, Korea, Thailand, Indonesia and Taiwan.

“Globalisation programme is one of the best things to have happened in the last few years” he says. “We need test playing nations to help us. We need a lot of help on a regular basis”.

“The ICC and ACC (Asian Cricket Council) are now beginning to help us with organising tournaments like this one, especially in getting teams and umpires here” he added.

Though cricket has been played in Singapore since 1946, the first major cricket fixtures with international stars took place here in 1996 when freshly-crowned world champions Sri Lanka, and former world cup winners Pakistan and India battled it out for the Singer Cup. Though that tournament was a great success, SCA was not able to attract international stars to play here until September this year. A tournament between India, Sri Lanka and Australia scheduled for last year was called off, when the latter two withdrew at the last moment.

Pianca says that for the financial viability of any tournament here, it is vital that India is part of it. “Demands on India are very heavy” he admits. “Basically the problem is a matter of scheduling. We organised this tournament only 6 or 7 weeks ago”.

SCA was able to negotiate a deal with Sony Television to broadcast the matches by satellite around the world, while Coca-Cola chipped in as the sponsor. They expect the relationship with the world famous soft drink manufacturer to grow and along with it the prospects of spreading the game to East Asia.

Pianca says that international cricket in Singapore could be profitable if India continues to come here while Coca-Cola sponsor the games.

The largely South Asian expatriate followers here and television rights are not enough to develop Singapore as a major cricketing venue. The game here will grow, only if it is spread in the schools.

Pianca agress that in international cricketing terms Singapore is currently a third-rate nation. But, he points out that the game is spreading fast in the schools.

“We started a development programme here in 1993. It’s only 6 or 7 years old” he explains. “We have made great strides since, but, it has to be a 20 to 25 year programme (for Singapore to reach world standards)”.

Though inter-school cricket, has been played here since 1965, in 1971 the game received a blow when the Ministry of Education removed it from the list of approved sports for Extra-Curricular Activities (ECA). It was not until 1996 that cricket was restored as an ECA sport in Singaporean schools.

“In 1993 we had only one school, now we 50 schools playing cricket. About 2000 boys are coming through the system and 30 to 40 percent of the boys are Chinese” Pianca points out.

About 70 percent of Singapore’s population are ethnic Chinese, while another 10 percent are of Indian or Sri Lankan origin

The best known of the new band of aspiring Chinese cricketers here is 16 year old Renchun Zeng, an outstanding wicket-keeper who captains the Singapore under 19 side which played in the recent junior Asian Cricket Cup. He has already been sent for training to India and Bangladesh.

“The future of cricket in Singapore is very bright” says Zeng, adding, “the Chinese community is developing a lot of good players and more should come up the ranks soon”.

He says he took up cricket because he thought it looks an interesting game and it allowed him to mix with boys of other races at school. He joined his school team at 13 years and his role models are the Australian wicket-keeper Ian Healy and the Indian master batsman Sachin Tendulkar.

Zeng was sent to Bangladesh as part of an ACC development programme where 2 players from each of the junior Asian Cup teams were chosen to undertake 2 weeks training in Bangladesh.

“The training in Bangladesh was very enriching” he says. “This type of training is not available in Singapore. It was an eye opener for me”.

While countries like Singapore are beginning to reap the benefits of Dalmiya’s globalisation programme, Pianca had one word of criticism for the ACC – an organisation which Dalmiya used to begin the game’s globalisation drive.

“I have a hard time understanding ACC’s aim in taking teams to Toronto (Canada). They should give support first to member states of the ACC” he says.

Singapore meanwhile plans to hold another major international cricket tournament early in the new year. Perhaps the next India-Pakistan series could be staged here, rather than in Toronto or Los Angeles.