Oman look to move up the food chain

"We're the minnows of the minnows. The bottom bottom, the absolute bottom-most." The words are followed by laughter.

Not the sound expected around the end of the first round of matches at the ICC World T20, aka them Qualifiers That Could Not Be Named. The week had otherwise produced unpredictability, rain, tears and recrimination. The incongruous laughter belonged to the Oman camp, a day before their giddy run was to end, an echo of their utter relish at the exhilaration and ludicrousness of everything.

In the real world, minnows are little freshwater fish, often used as bait to catch the bigger daddies. In the World T20 fish tank, Oman, the "minnows of minnows", could easily have been considered fodder. They are, in truth, the krill of cricket, who have pulled off a great migration to deeper waters and discovered that survival, while not a given, is certainly possible.

Among the Associates, Oman are a one-off in several ways. Yes, the team is packed with expatriates from India and Pakistan, and yes, the country's links with cricket, though tenuous, have their roots in the British empire. The Sultanate of Zanzibar, whose rulers belonged to the Omani royal family, became a British protectorate around the turn of the 20th century. Cricket in the region could have dried out into dregs, like it has in parts of the world where it had shallow roots. At the turn of the last century, though, Oman picked a new route for its cricket, creating a template to be envied and emulated in Associate cricket.

A packed seasonal schedule running from September to April, an eight-division corporate league featuring 92 clubs, 30 schools teams, 40-odd Level I and II qualified umpires, and a youth development programme. Beat that anyone. This in a country where cricket has mostly been played on grassless, utterly brown outfields, on concrete strips covered with artificial turf. (Also called at one point "Derek Underwood wickets", in reference to the former England spinner's association with a British company that made artificial pitches.)

Oman's first "green ground" came into being only three years ago, a proper turf wicket with floodlights. In a year from now, it is hoped there will be an indoor school on site, with eight net lanes.

In less than 18 months, Oman the team have also surged. Picking themselves out of Division Five of the World Cricket League, they were the second lowest-ranked entrant into the 14-strong field - ahead of only 30th ranked Jersey - at the World T20 Qualifier in Scotland and Ireland. They then squeezed into the big league as the lowest ranked of the 16 teams at the 2016 ICC World T20. Bringing up the bottom of the bottom.

They are one more example of the fact that like a thoughtful spinner building his spell, cricket can move through new nations at varying speeds and trajectories. It took less than two decades, through a combination of circumstances, to take hold in Afghanistan. In Oman, the country is being lured towards the sport by creating compelling conditions for play. It is happening at what looks like express pace, culminating in their World T20 appearance, which has burnt up Pankaj Khimji's phone with messages and calls. From members of the royal family - referred to as "highnesses" - corporate honchos, friends, un-royal families, the works.

Khimji, board member of Oman Cricket, the country's representative at the ICC, and part-time bowler in his team's nets in Dharamsala, is cricket's chief proselytiser in a football-mad country. It is the first time that any senior Oman team made it to a World Cup in any sport (though their juniors did make it to the Under-17 football World Cup semi-final in 1995), he says, and "everyone went bananas".

At this point, Khimji knows what matters lies beyond the bananas. "Now that we are recipients of certain higher funding from the ICC as Associates for a few years, we are able to control our pockets. At least this team, or rather this tournament, we're not out of pocket." Oman even have a brand sponsor, Omantel, which has committed US$150,000 over two years.

"We're not so much worried about the resources as much as we are worried about building from here and how we are going to keep the bench strength going," Khimji says. It is why the hard sell of the sport to the local population in Oman must continue.

It began from the top. A petition was sent to the ruler of Oman, Sultan Qaboos bin Said, explaining the need to promote the sport and introduce cricket - its gentlemanliness, discipline, respect for authority, not questioning the umpire's decision - into schools. "We said, this game is as physical and competitive as you can get without touching each other," says Khimji. It helped that the Sultan's uncle had played the sport in school in Zanzibar.

Oman Cricket pulled in Mohammed Ishaq, the old Sharjah curator, to use his knowledge of topography and conditions to lay the wicket at the Al Ameerat Cricket Ground. They brought in Duleep Mendis as chief development officer.

The ground, the wicket, the expertise. "That really changed everything," says Khimji, member of a six-generation Indian-origin Omani business family. In 2014, Oman were promoted from Affiliate to Associate status, having given the ICC inspection and monitoring team a two-year look into their functioning and delivering on promises made. A performance programme was in place, the junior teams were making progress, the financials were properly audited.

What Oman would like, though, is what Khimji calls "a little more hand-holding" from the ICC. "If we want to set up lighting, maybe ready information at hand who are their [ICC's] preferred lighting contractors or suppliers. Now they tend to say to us, 'It is there in the rule book.' We would like some direct updated spec sheet, saying that for Asian pitches this is what you should do, for Ireland, this is the ideal criteria to follow.

"But they are so embroiled in their own internal administration, financials and other things, they don't have time for Associates and Affiliates. I don't know what Affiliates must be getting." He tells the story of a pitch consultant who worked in a neighbouring country who charged Oman $1000 a day for ten days to provide advice to local groundsmen.

On their own, the next focus, Khimji says, would be to direct energies to the youth development programme, which includes 30 under-20 players who feature in the A and B divisions, with a 50-50 split between locals and expats. The trainees are given a stipend, required to come in for practice three to four times a week, and play in the weekly Friday club game. Their parents are called in for advice about nutritional and other requirements.

Part of that plan also evolves into convincing six or seven private Omani schools to introduce cricket as an afternoon- or once-a-week sport, starting with 11-13-year-olds.

There are, Khimji says, 200-odd Omani locals playing cricket, who are encouraged to mix with the expats, "to get their level higher.

"What tends to happen is, they are not motivated enough. For the sake of playing better cricket, Indian and Pakistani boys don't mind their parents driving them at 5am in the morning. If you tell Omanis you are going to play football for the Under-19s team, they would run to do the same. In order for them to play cricket, they have to see the others doing things, being disciplined about cricket, for them to appreciate what the whole thing is about. So let's see."

The current Oman team features a single local, Sufyan Mehmood, the only player who sang his country's national anthem in Dharamsala while his team-mates stood alongside in silent respect. A second local player, who had featured in the qualifiers team in Scotland and Ireland last year, couldn't make the squad due to injury.

The percentages are skewed, but Oman have crossed several barriers to get to where they are today. Once it was a place that hosted four or five matches a year, when British naval ships stopped by in the 1950s and 1960s, pitting the then-Sultan's brother, Indian traders and other cricket tragics against the visitors on coir or jute matting wickets over concrete. Today, as cricket juggles its new territories, Oman are one team with both resources and imagination. And only T20 has the capacity on any given day to turn krill into game fish.