Morocco: How Abdur Rahman Bukhatir is building cricket in Morocco from the ground up

In Morocco, the game of cricket was initially connected with the foreign diplomatic communities residing in Rabat, mainly the Britisih and Pakistani community, who used to organise informal practice sessions in the American School and play on football or open grounds.

Slowly, these sessions started to interest and include local Moroccan players as well, which resulted in an enthusiastic local team being able to participate in organised matches.

Although cricket was played in Morocco, most of the players, especially the locals, were not aware of the game, nor were they attending regular formal coaching sessions.

Now, for the last three years, under the initiative, support and goodwill of Mr. Abdur Rahman Bukhatir, the father of cricket in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, and the main promoter of cricket in Morocoo, there has been tremendous effort displayed by different people at different levels to promote cricket and develop the proper structure of this game in the country. As a result of these combined efforts, the Moroccan Cricket Association was created and the game is now played in three different centres - Rabat, Tnagier and Casablanca - Rabat being the main centre.

At present there are eight cricket teams in Morocco, five of which are in Rabat, two in Tangier and one in Casablanca. Each team consists of 25 players and 7-10 officials for the promotion, supervision and administration of the club and also a lot of youngsters who are really interested and keen to learn the game. The names of these clubs are:

At the level of infrastructures, two new cricket stadiums are being developed, one in Tangier and the second in Rabat. The Tangier stadium is of international standard and is more or less ready now. It contains all the facilities and conveniences for staging international matches. The facility includes five turf wickets for matches and another five turf and another two cement wickets in the practice areas. The Rabat stadium is still being prepared and contains six cement wickets with the provision of converting those to turf wickets.

Once the grounds are ready, we intend to start the local tournament matches as well as regular league matches. As far as the local tournaments are concerned, the first local tournament organised under the control of the Moroccan Cricket Association, took place in November, 1999. Three teams participated - a local Rabat side - Stade Marocain, and two expatriate teams formed by the Indian expatriate community in the two centres.The Indian team from Casablanca won the tournament.

Last season, however, two knockout competitions involving local teams were organised in Rabat, one in July, 2000, and the other in October, 2000. The July tournament included four teams - Fath Union Sports, Stade Marocain, Association Sportive de Sale and Union Sportive, with Association Sportive the ultimate winner.

The October 2000 tournament involved all of Morocco's team's bar Inhad Riyadi (Tangier). Casablanca's Al Wijaq Sports Association won the tournament.

At the level of human resources, there is a team of people, Moroccans and foreigners, who are combining their energy, their efforts and their hard work for the promotion, development and administration of cricket.

On the development and coaching pact, the MCA has acquired the services of three professional coaches from India - Mohinder Armanath, the coach of the Moroccan national team, Surinder Armanath and Narayan Rao Satham, assistant coaches to Mohinder Armanath. The three, with their long experience in coaching, training, umpiring and preparations of wickets, have been assigned the responsibility of developing cricket in Morocco at all levels and training senior local cricketers as coaches to promote the game further in the other cities of Morocco.

Other than the professional coaches, the MCA has also hired two Moroccans - Redwan El Harali and Mohamed Bouhameu, as local assistant coaches. Mr. El Harali is an assistant coach to Mr Rao in Tangier, while Mr Bouhameu works with Surinder Armanath in Rabat and Casablanca.

On the promotion, administration and coiordination front, two local officials, Mr. Farouk Lazrak and myself, who are the initial promoters behind the creation and structuring of almost all of the existing cricket teams in Morocco. Beside administrating and coordinating cricket in Morocco, they are working hand in hand with the coaches in order to structure and implement an overall system, which will promote the game further. This will include the introduction of cricket into schools, produce outstanding local cricketers who are able to compete at international level, consistent with Morocco's tradition of always producing great and outstanding sportsmen in different fields. We hope we can do the same in cricket in the near future.