Cricket in Malaysia has a longstanding history dating back to early 1880 and in 1967, Malaysian cricket was admitted as an associate member of the International Cricket Council (ICC). Malaysia has seen cricket evolve over the years and of recent, there is rapid growth, especially among the ethnic youth. Through many sustainable structures in place, Malaysian Cricket is on its way to realising its vision of being a major sport in the country with a world -renowned team.

In an exclusive interview with SPOGO, Dinesh Muthuraman, Chief Operating Officer of   Malaysian Cricket Association, shares his insights about the growth of cricket, the vision forward, grassroot development, increasing female participation and what the future looks like for Malaysian Cricket.

Q 1) Malaysian cricket has a very rich history, started by the British and becoming the associate member of the ICC. How has the journey been? Please share light on the growth of Malaysian cricket.

Malaysia has a very rich cricket history. Being a British colony, the game was introduced in 1880’s and the British formed the first cricket club at the Royal Selangor Club which still holds several tournaments to this day. Going back in time, the first recorded match was played between the state of Selangor and Malacca in 1887. No doubt, cricket was always associated as an elite sport.

Malaysian Cricket Association has since embarked on making the sport accessible to every Malaysian and there was no better place to start than in the national schools throughout the country. The country houses more than ten thousand schools and today we even have cricket in the school syllabus for the primary and secondary students.

Today, we have our state affiliates working hand in hand with the national association who continue to work tirelessly towards growing cricket in all schools. We train the teachers and develop sustainable programmes for cricket at all levels to enable continuity and growth of the sport with the support of the state education departments and the Ministry Of Education.

All this is aside, we have clear pathway programmes that can provide our talents with a career in the sport. There are in addition, high profile clubs in the country with their own teams and they organise their own inter-port matches.
Through all of these developments, Malaysian cricket has earned credibility and has had many parties reaching out to partner us in various capacities. Towards this end, we are pleased to see an upward trend.

Q 2) As the COO of the Malaysian Cricket Association, what is your vision, and the path you plan to take for Malaysian cricket board?

In order to be a major sport in Malaysia, we have embarked on making cricket accessible and known, beginning at the grassroots. In 2010, cricket was played in around 154 schools and most of these schools were the country’s top boarding schools.

Currently, Malaysia has more than 10,500 schools. In our quest to promote cricket to all the schools, we worked towards putting solid structures in place, obtained sponsorship for educational pathways for the players and most importantly, we gained support from the Ministry of Sports and the Ministry of Education making our efforts sustainable.

With the backing of the ministries, we were able to follow in the footsteps of major cricket playing countries such as India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh and introduce a School Cricket Programme. Our programme encompasses courses for school teachers to learn the basics of the sport which will then enable the teachers to cascade the knowledge and skill to their students.

Through the introduction of the school programmes, we are assured of recruiting more locals to play for the country which will be far more sustainable for the development of the cricket in Malaysia in addition to providing a better future for the player and their families, elevating their socio-economic status.  We see it as a win -win for all.

Q 3) The ICC has just announced changes to its 50-over World Cup format being expanded to 14 teams and the T20 World Cup format expanded to 20 teams and will be held every two years. How does it impact Malaysia’s cricket team?

We welcome the changes made by the ICC for the 50 overs World Cup format and the fact the T20 has been increased to twenty (20) teams. This is a positive move by the ICC and we thank them for the inclusion of more teams, as it now gives better opportunities for associate countries like Malaysia to participate and reach our goal of playing in the World Cup.

When a nation empowers its teams to participate in global tournaments, then promoting the sport locally will come with ease. The team is at present working hard to qualify for the CWC world cup while Malaysian Cricket Association is looking towards giving them international exposure. Recently, our national team played in the tri-series in Nepal. They played against high-ranking teams namely the Netherlands and Nepal. We have a few international tournaments lined up for the fourth quarter of the year for both the men and women’s teams in preparation for World Cup qualifiers.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, tournaments are now at a standstill. Under normal circumstances, we would have been playing in the 2nd round Challenge League in Canada this August. This tournament however has been rescheduled to be played in Malaysia in December 2021 and the 3rd round will be played in Canada in 2022. With the T20, it is open to all the participating countries and Malaysia will be playing the ICC Sub regional Asia qualifiers in November this year. If we were to win, it would put us in good stead to play in the World Cup qualifiers.

Q 4) Which are the major leagues or tournaments being played at school and state levels and what is the response that these games receive? Please elaborate on the grass root development programs.

We have introduced the Cricket Adirwira program which is an entry level program with modified cricket rules that can be played anytime, anywhere by anyone. Through the Cricket Adiwira, programme, both teachers and students are able to understand the game as we have simplified rules and the game is played using tape-ball. Seeing as it is not possible to engage coaches for all the 10,500 schools, this simplified version is the best way to introduce the game to the teachers.

In Cricket Adiwira, all players will have equal opportunity in batting, bowling and fielding. Through this program, we have introduced cricket to around 1,500 schools & 2500 teachers. The school teachers now understand the rules of basic cricket. We still have to reach the remaining schools and our target is by the end of 2025.

Cricket Adirwira is an eight-week programme. Upon completion, the players will be moving to a competition called T10 blaze after which they will progress to T20 blast. The Ministry of Education organised an U 12 and U18 tournaments for the boys starting from the district level, then the state and on to the national level. Apart from this, MCA organised in collaboration with MOE a national school championship for the U12 and U18 for both boys and girls and also an interstate tournament for U16 and U19 for the states associations and the best players from these competitions will be selected for the National age group camps. We are very invested in bringing cricket to the grassroots which will then produce more national players.

Q 5) Malaysian Cricket off late has been faring decently especially in the T20 format. What are the factors you think are responsible behind the team's success? How do you plan the team performance in ICC tournaments?

Well, it all starts from within, and with our players, although not overnight, we inculcated a ‘winning mentality’, we had to make them believe in their ability. We see the results surfacing, currently, 90% of our players are local. Prior to 2015 we had 50% foreign players in our national team and were moving up the global rankings. However, with careful consideration, we decided to take in local talent at an appropriate time to train and field local talent.

Apart from the above, we felt that the T20 format will have buy-in from the local talents since this format requires lesser hours of play compared to one day format or the other longer formats. MCA introduced T20 tournaments at the club & state level as well as the high performance tournaments to the best 80 in the country to get maximum domestic exposure and selecting the best available 14 players to represent the country.

We knew things would be difficult at the start but later on the boys will improve. Some of the players who started at that time had already played in the 2008 U19 World Cup or in the ACC U-19 Asia Cup between the years 2012 to 2017. We had a mixture of senior & junior players in the team in 2015-16 but we kept them together and we then decided to award them with a full- time contract in 2019. These players train on a regular basis.

In addition, we joined forces with local private and public institutes of higher learning and secured scholarship programmes for our players. To complement the education journey, we have the armed forces that are also employing cricketers. We have created a pathway for these players be it in education or employment and today, we see that these players are working really hard with a sense of loyalty in wanting to play their best and give back to their country.

As the association seeks to produce professional players, then the onus is on us to take care  of their every need.  The contracts given to them is to afford them to play cricket and not have to worry about leaving cricket to find another job. This way, they can play, continue their studies and can also work in the armed forces and come back to train full time. The Malaysian Cricket Association has also employed some of the players' development officers. Through these systems in place, we see remarkable improvements. We are also working towards giving International exposure by providing competitive matches that will see our players performing in the international arena.

Q 6) Malaysia recently awarded contracts to 15 national women cricketers, how big of an impact could it have in promoting the game among women and young girls? What are the major challenges you face while growing Cricket in Malaysia and how do you overcome them?

While it is a given that the ultimate goal for any sport is ‘the medal’, the focus of Malaysia Cricket is not merely on the medal. Malaysia Cricket looks beyond and deeper as embedded in its corporate vision “To be a Major Sport in Malaysia”, lies an innate passion to empower and inspire young minds at the grassroots level, through the sport of cricket and advertently, change lives. For the first time in twenty-two years, fifteen girls were admitted into Malaysia’s first sports School – The Bukit Jalil Sports School. We certainly consider this a milestone of Cricket in Malaysia.

To change the perception of cricket as a sport, we had to foremost ensure the ‘buy in’ from the Ministry of Education and that the MOE needed to understand that with this sport we can definitely change the children's lives as cricket is a team game.  It took us almost ten years to gain their confidence. And we now work well with the ministries and schools.

At present, we are faced with the challenge of how to convince parents; since they believe it's hard to have a career in sports in a country like Malaysia, as cricket is not played as a professional sport. If together with a contract, comes placement for a job, then the parents will be more willing. Giving the contract to 25 men and 15 women actually changed the preconceived perception about cricket. Parents and teachers are now showing interest, people are following us and we are seeing a host of positive changes.

Q 7) As COO, what are the top three priorities that you would like to focus on? Where do you see Malaysian Cricket Association in the next 5 years?

My top three priorities would certainly be sponsorship & fan engagement, to see the national team play in the world cup and have a pool of trained coaches.

Malaysian Cricket Association has already developed school cricket, we have club cricket and we now have Government support. In terms of finances, it will always be very difficult to get a sponsorship, especially in the current scenario.

In 2018 we began our very own in – house production to live stream all matches which took off in 2019. Last year, 2020 FanCode from India bought the broadcasting rights for the T20i bi-lateral series between Malaysia and Hong Kong. This made us believe that we really have an opportunity of selling our events and thus started doing live streaming more seriously. Sponsorship is steadily streaming now.

To be a self-sustaining association, sponsorship is an important factor to promote the game. We cannot depend solely on grants and subsidies, hence, we need to bring in the sponsorship. In addition, we are in the midst of partnering with a technology company that will be a game changer for Malaysian Cricket fan engagement.

An equally important priority is the national team. We need to qualify for the World Cup for both men and women and also in the U19 levels. Apart from that, growing the game in Malaysia to realise our vision is just as important. This will require us to have good quality coaches at all levels and with this goal in mind, we are working with the International Cricket Council and the Asian Cricket Council to conduct several coaching courses here in Malaysia in order to get the local coaches to produce quality players.

The journey is continuous and we will keep going.