A touching ceremony was held at the indoor nets at Grace Road in Leicester last week. Tim Boon, the former England analyst who helped in the Ashes victory but has returned to coach his old county, interrupted squad training to welcome the club’s new signing, Mohammad Asif, the gifted Pakistan fast bowler. As Asif went round shaking hands, he came across a face he recognised, Dinesh Mongia, the India batsman. “Oh yes,” he said, to laughter.
“I know who you are.”
Leicestershire’s pairing of Indian and Pakistani overseas players is unusual. There are few parallels in county cricket beyond the famous double act of Bishan Bedi and Sarfraz Nawaz at Northampton in the 1970s, although Surrey are looking to team up Azhar Mahmood and Anil Kumble later this season.
It may be indicative of the new rapprochement between often hostile neighbours, but it also reflects Leicestershire’s determination to draw local Asians through the turnstiles. Leicester is expected to become Britain’s first Asian-majority city by 2010, but you would never have known it from watching the county team play cricket in the past.
But the club is determined to shake off its reputation as white, middle-class and increasingly irrelevant. Last year it outsourced its commercial arm to a company called Investors In Cricket (IIC), chaired by Manoj Badale, a British Asian businessman, until 2013. In return the club holds a 20% stake in all of IIC’s projects.
“I think the game as a whole must recognise this is going to be a slow process,” said Badale. “The issues as to why Asians are not more involved in county cricket are multiple and complex. Clubs need to be just that — clubs where people can spend time and socialise.”
IIC sees the presence of Asians in the first XI as an essential means of attracting commercial partners. However, it is proving difficult to find another Asian to replace Asif, who is expected to make his first-team debut alongside Mongia at Old Trafford today, when he leaves in late June to join Pakistan’s tour of England. Boon had been hoping to acquire Munaf Patel, but that plan had to be scrapped because of his commitments with India.
Boon says there is nothing to stop him signing a non-Asian, but one of his main goals is to build a seamless structure between the county XI and allsections of the local community. “We want to put this club at the heart of the community and make it a fully integrated, multicultural place,” he says. “We want to welcome anybody who wants to join in, on or off the field. Mohammad Asif is going to be an incredible role model. He’ll create a vibrant atmosphere in the community.”
The first steps in the Leicestershire revolution have been encouraging. Last year IIC organised a hugely popular Twenty20 competition featuring sides from Sri Lanka and Pakistan. The Bharat Army — the equivalent of the Barmy Army — came out in force and a carnival of distinctly Asian flavour took over the Grace Road ground. The tournament was broadcast by Sony TV to Asia.
The county has assigned every player as an ambassador to a local Premier League club to strengthen links with the grassroots. The drive helped sell 1,000 season tickets for the Twenty20 Cup, the most accessible form of the game for new audiences, which Leicestershire won two years ago. In the past it has proved hard to lure local Asian cricketers away from their own leagues — there are about 40 Asian-based teams in Leicester — but there are signs of progress. Jasmine Chauhan, the club’s community development officer, has been working closely with inner-city organisations and clubs, and Boon says the county’s latest academy intake includes two or three “cracking” 17-year-old Asians.
Boon recently spoke to local Asian businessmen about his vision for the club at a gathering attended by Farokh Engineer, the former India wicket- keeper, and Usman Afzaal, the Northants batsman. Perhaps partly as a result, hospitality for Leicestershire’s three-day match against the Pakistanis in July has been sold out.
Boon, who left the England set-up in February after five years working alongside Duncan Fletcher, has already implemented big changes on the playing side. He is conscious that he can’t simply replicate the methods that worked for an international team, but has copied the national side by boosting the club’s back-room staff. He has brought in a sports scientist, a dietician, a biomechanist — and even a kick-boxer, to help with footwork. He could hardly help but spot Asif’s ability when the stripling fast bowler cut a swathe through England’s batting during a warm-up match in Pakistan.
Leicestershire, who finished seventh in the County Championship Second Division in 2005, have been an unfancied side for years, widely derided for their eagerness for the “short-term fix” that Boon insists is not going to be part of his view. Last year they routinely fielded two overseas players and three others not qualified for England — the dreaded Kolpak players — including their captain, Hylton Ackerman. He has stood down as captain to concentrate on his batting and the post has gone to Jeremy Snape, a supporter of Boon’s modern approach.
To make his mark in the long term, Boon will need to deliver the county success and probably produce some Test cricketers. He has a promising young fast bowler on his books in Stuart Broad, but perhaps the best way of showing off his talents would be to integrate local Asians into the side. It could be a march that turns into a stampede.
