Morocco: Moroccan national team may tour UK in 2003

Morocco's oldest cricket club, Stade Marocain, reaffirmed its status as one of the North African kingdom's top clubs with an emphatic win over a British XI in Tangier last month.

The Rabat based club, which recently became the cricket wing of the multi-sport Stade Marocain facility that also features other sports such as football and handball, compiled 153 thanks chiefly it is understood to Younes Abbassi and Benhima Mirza.

The Moroccan attack of Amine Mejjati (six wickets) and Abdellatif Benchekroun (four wickets) destroyed the British XI batting line-up, with the Director of the British Council in Morocco, Graham McCulloch, scoring 30 of the expatriate team's total of 53 all out.

Mr. McCulloch has taken the defeat sportingly, and is behind moves for a squad (perhaps the Moroccan national team) of Morocco's best indigenous players to tour the United Kingdom, perhaps in 2003. The Moroccan team would play teams of similar standard.

Cricket activity will pick up in the coming months as it comes out of its winter slowdown with plans for a national league involving the eight mainly indigenous teams - Rabat's Moroccan Cricket Association, Fath Sports Union, Stade Marocain, Association Sportive de Sale and Union Sportive of Yacoub El Mansour; Tangier's Inhad Riyadi, Taramia Omni Sports Association of Tangier as well as Al Wijaq Sports Association of Casablanca are activated.

Despite the winter recess teams are practicing during weekends using the outdoor pitches in Tangier and indoor facilities in Rabat.

Off the field, the sport has taken another step forward with the incorporation of the Cricket Moroccan Royal Federation. Mr. Chakib Nejjar, a prominent chemist in Rabat, has been appointed as the President for four years.

Work on Moroccan cricket's second stadium started in Rabat in the middle of December and is expected to be completed in July. It is rumoured the ground in Tangier could host full scale one day internationals involving Pakistan and South Africa possibly as early as April.

Cricket in Morocco is moving ahead thanks to the combined efforts of the Abdur Rahman Bukhatir financed Cricketer Benefit Fund Series, the expatriate community in Rabat and Tangier and Moroccan sports officials.