More questions than answers

There is a potentially captive audience for cricket between rivals from the Indian subcontinent in the Greater Toronto area. Cricket fans, I believe, can be a bit less parochial than soccer fans, so given the right teams, the potential to fill the Rogers Centre (previously known as the SkyDome) with 60,000 could be achieved. In my opinion, given the right teams and the right promotion. Heck, a full national side match between India and Pakistan could probably fill the place with mediocre publication if the price was right.

There are many good causes and charities that service major health issues that impact Canada, the Indian Subcontinent and most of the globe. The Heart & Stroke Foundation was announced as the leading benefactor for this match.

There are a host of community leaders lining up to support cricket. Some police leaders and politicians spoke favourably at this conference about cricket. There is increasing media interest. There's a cricket World Cup next March and April. So with the right mix of charity and cricket, you can achieve success, as was done in 1989 when the then SkyDome hosted West Indies v Rest of the World.

On Monday October 16, there was a media conference at the Rogers Centre to announce a Pakistan Legends versus India Legends match. The match is to be played on March 3, 2007. The email about the event noted Wasim Akram as the Pakistan captain, and Mohammad Azharuddin as India's captain.

Now I was not on the original list of media invitees but was appraised of the event by some friends. I heard about it, checked with one of the contacts and along I went. Recently my focus has been on Canadian cricket, and I had more of an eye on an evening event about the World Cup in Antigua and Barbuda than on the Legends event. But various people were happy to see me, including some involved with the organisation of this match. I indicated, before the conference started, I would try and help them, if they liked.

The issue of Azharuddin being under a lifetime ban came up during question time. "Why didn't you know this in advance?" Canadian Cricket Association (CCA) president, Ben Sennik, and organizers, M+D Corp were asked. Why was a banned player listed as captain? And what about Ajay Jajeda, currently under a five-year ban?

The answers were skirted around and left at least one media pundit wondering about Sennik's cricketing knowledge being on the ball.

There was little the organisers could do about news of some current Pakistan players failing drug tests, but that played into the issue of cricket being a gentleman's game. The last India-Pakistan series in Toronto included the taunting incident with Inzaman-ul-Haq.

Someone with streetsmarts might have foreseen this potential connection and pointed to a recent release from the ICC about crowd behavior and taunts. Last I knew, the CCA had no drug-testing policy or program - something that is in the public domain - and that was one factor in why Federal Government Funding was turned down in 2005. Perhaps someone could have doused the doping issue?

The subsequent Tuesday morning reports in the Toronto Star on this launch are not likely to be linked to the official CCA website. I didn't get to see or hear any reports on the event on South Asian news programs.

In the immediate aftermath, the lack of reality in dreaming Canada could win the World Cup in the foreseeable future, possibly as early as next year, didn't even register on the Richter scale. It could be left for another day, together with the new-found goal of Test Status in 2017.

There were some tough questions from some leading local South Asian community reporters. "Is the match a fundraiser or a serious match?" We were told it would be serious - perhaps there could have been supporting notes about the proposed pitch to suggest it would be better than that in 1989.

The timing of the match (from a placing in the year), was raised with a hint of why legends and not current players. "Who are M+D Community Corp?", asked another pro-cricket pundit. Again, there could have been coverage in the media handout to provide some background. The CCA might also have provided a write-up on Cricket in Canada.

One correspondent asked about an exchange program between the Toronto and Jamaican police. Might this kind of arrangement be extended to other local police forces? Potential indeed and a note of optimism for Canadian cricket.

My one private question to Sennik was about a Kenyan word he had mentioned at the CCA/St Lucia dinner. The word harambee conveys the meaning of pulling together. I mentioned it tied in with the spirit of what was said at the Cricket: Reality, Respect, Reward public forum in Toronto's Metro Hall in April. I will never forget that evening!

My contribution to harambee on Monday lunchtime was to ask no public questions. I then engaged in a long discussion on how the 2007 Canadian Universities and College Championships could be a much bigger event than the inaugural run in 2006. One day - hopefully soon - a reasonable report on that event will surface. The finalists sported AIDS red-ribbons, coinciding with the last day of the Toronto International AIDS Convention.

I was even happier, an hour or two after the media conference, to find at least one Urdu-language newspaper looks set to use some Canadian cricket news I sent them.

The Legends match is due to be played between 9am and 5pm. Why start so early, seeing some speakers wanted a wider community than just cricket lovers to attend? My thinking about a Rogers-centre major cricket event would be to provide films on the basics of the game, some coaching clips and action highlights to set the mood.

Probably because there is to be a gala dinner that night - Sennik told us that, but again, the media handout said nothing about a dinner. If Canadian cricket is to thrive, it needs a focus on the main product - Canadian cricket. Dinners and golf tournaments are tangential to the cricket. But organisers of dinners and golf tournaments don't need cricket knowledge.

Similarly, at a gala dinner, there can be all kinds of hype and it may be taken with a pinch (or a bag) of salt, or at least temporarily ignored. There's a reality in staging a media conference. The Legends event proved the point. Tickets go on sale today, we were told. Where and how much? The Toronto Star took the trouble to ask about the prices.

Perhaps this week I'll follow-up to see if anything has changed. After all, the only website referenced in the Media Kit is Cricinfo!