One grass pitch, 1.4 billion people - cricket on sticky wicket in China

They play on a football pitch with plastic wickets and most Chinese people have never even heard of cricket. The Ashes it is not.

But a devoted band of followers says the sport is gradually growing in China, where there is thought to be only one grass cricket pitch for a population of 1.4 billion.

They are up against it with scant domestic media coverage and limited facilities, and Chinese cricket making worldwide headlines for paltry scores.

In 2017 the men's national side was bowled out for a humiliating 28 runs against Saudi Arabia in a World Cricket League regional qualifier.

And this January the women's team were skittled out for just 14 runs against the United Arab Emirates, then the lowest women's total in T20 International cricket.

Undeterred, a handful of spectators recently turned out to watch Shanghai's women's team, and saw them thrash a Hong Kong outfit in a 20-overs-a-side game reduced to 15 overs because of the heat.

In the absence of a grass cricket pitch -- there is one in China, but it is 1,500 kilometres (1,000 miles) south in Guangzhou -- the women played on an artificial football pitch.

"The first question (I get asked is), 'What's cricket?'" said Ma Fei, an umpire who with his whites and sun hat certainly looks the part.

Ma, who also goes by the Pakistani-sounding name Malik, then tells the frequent inquisitors that it is a bit like baseball.

"And then they understand," he said, adding that he was attracted to the game by its "ceremonial procedures... the tea breaks, for example".

- 'We didn't know what it was' -
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"So what we have been doing is youth training, and specifically, making cricket more popular and laying the foundations in Shanghai." - Historic roots -
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