Thanks to Sachin Tendulkar, South Korean girls love cricket

It's not normal to hear that Sachin Tendulkar's videos are played in South Korea to motivate local players. But Nasir Khan, a Pakistani-origin cricketer living here for over 20 years, has been doing it regularly to attract local girls from other disciplines, mostly softball, to shift to a "new game" called cricket.

His efforts are finally paying off as more and more girls from other sports — swimming, golf, tennis, badminton and taekwondo — have now been practising rigorously to win a medal at the Asian Games.
Eunjin Lee, a 21-year-old former lifeguard, is one such batswoman who tries and copies the retired Master Blaster's style. Her technique may not match that of Tendulkar's but she has worked on her back-lift by watching some of his big innings.

"She used to fret over the lack of strength in her arms, and her height. But I motivated her by showing her videos of the great man. 'See, this guy is short in stature, but he's very tall in his achievements'," Khan told Lee and her other teammates during the course of training sessions.

South Korea has had a cricket league in place since the early 1990s. But it were expatriates from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Australia who played in this league. And they were all male.

It was only before cricket's inclusion in the 2010 Asian Games that South Korea managed to form a men's team comprising their own. And last year, they decided to have a women's team too. Khan was given this difficult task of finding girls who could be trained for these Games.

Khan soon found out that his job was anything but easy. He put up banners in colleges and universities and managed to find about 20 girls. Now, he had the task to take this core group to some cricket-playing country for exposure. And he chose Nepal. Why? "The girls were not ready to go to Pakistan. Sri Lanka would be too rainy and Australia too cold. We were also worried that I could be denied an Indian visa because of my Pakistani background," Khan said.

Cost was another factor that prompted Khan to choose Nepal. The trip lasted two months. It helped the girls become better cricketers. "It was during our stay there that the girls watched the IPL. As cricket in Asian Games is a T20 affair, the girls could understand the game better," said Khan, who believes IPL is a "tamasha".

The girls liked the stylish strokeplayers and exciting pace bowlers. They became fans of Virat Kohli for his style and strokes and Lasith Malinga for his hairstyle and slingy action. The coach also quizzed his players after to know their understanding of the sport.

The girls, however, failed to match the skills of their heroes during the two practice games against Hong Kong and China and were bowled out for 57 and 49, respectively.

"It's difficult for a novice to play this game with style. I was worried they'd be confused by the rules, terms, fielding positions. But they understand all of that very well," explained the coach.

Lee says she enjoys playing cricket. "I really like it very much," she says.

Over time, Khan hopes that the girls will improve and excel.