Overseas wicket

KOCHI: The gentleman’s game is quite popular now in the west, played predominantly by people from Asian subcontinent settled in the US. There are now plans to turn the USA Cricket team into a competitive team. To identify talents who will spice up the game, the USA Cricket created six new zonal panels recently. Thalassery native Sabin Sundar is one of the zonal selectors from Washington DC, which falls under the Mid-Atlantic zone.

abin represented the Kerala Ranji cricket team for the 1995-96 season and played two tests. He has also been a member of the Under-19 Board President’s XI that faced the England cricket team. Sabin has been playing in the Washington Cricket League (WCL) for the past 20 years. “Here, tournaments are held across three leagues and the players for Under-19 and Under-16 cricket teams are selected based on their performance in the league. Many are unaware of the selection process and USA Cricket wants to have a fair system in place to select players,” says Sabin.

He adds that USA Cricket is functioning very actively to build a team and to get permanently inducted into the International Cricket Council (ICC) by 2030. “Many schools have introduced cricket now. The game is now actively being played by many from the Asian subcontinent and they might be the first to play for the US team,” he adds. 

Sabin did his schooling in Christ Nagar English Higher Secondary School and completed Electrical Engineering from the College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram. He played with Rahul Dravid, V V S Laxman, and Vijay Bharadwaj in Under-17 and Under-19 zonal cricket tournaments. “I moved to work in IT in the late 90s as I was sure I wouldn’t make it to Ranji Trophy or other major tournaments,” he quips.

He affirms that tournaments like the Indian Premier League have a great influence on people who love cricket in the US. According to him, T20 format has popularised cricket in many parts of the world. “It throws a different challenge to the players. Bowlers are relieved that they have to bowl only four overs. But the batsmen are under severe pressure to perform,” says Sabin.