It’s a progression that means playing in one of the many games that spring up along the road in Hanuabada is no longer just a leisure pursuit.Īnd one day - I might not be alive then – PNG might be playing Test cricketīy Greg Campbell, Cricket PNG’s General ManagerĪided by development funds from the Australian government, PNG players are now on central contracts for the first time – a great incentive for batsmen to clear those roofs, and for bowlers to avoid those trips into the Coral Sea to retrieve the ball. Their late collapse in qualifying, having gone into the Super Six stage nicely poised, nevertheless saw the ‘Barramundis’ awarded ODI status – they’re slated to play the Afghans as well as associate ODI nations like Scotland and the UAE later this year. While the presence of Afghanistan at this World Cup had been ordained ever since their meteoric rise up the rankings from the depths of the world cricket league, PNG have flown under the radar to reach this point. And one day – I might not be alive then – PNG might be playing Test cricket.” The rules have changed with four spots fewer for the next one but we’re confident we can get there. “But that’s our pinnacle at the moment, to reach a 50-over or 20-over World Cup. “In the last 12 months we’ve missed two World Cups by a game,” Cricket PNG’s General Manager Greg Campbell told Al Jazeera at an U19 nets session in Port Moresby. Hanuabada provides the vast majority of PNG’s national players – cricketers who were within a shade of reaching both last year’s World Twenty20, and the ongoing competition in Australia and New Zealand. But that hasn’t stopped Papua New Guinea from getting agonisingly close to a place at the 2015 World Cup.
In the rest of the country, the game isn’t played very much. At least, this is what cricket sounds like in Hanuabada – the ‘village on stilts’ on the outskirts of the capital Port Moresby.
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