Manager Aims to Make SCC Divas Cricket Team Shed DH Identity
By Vir B. Lumicao
SCC Divas may be the only all-Filipino women’s cricket team in the world, says its manager, but it still known in Hong Kong as a group made up of domestic workers.
Manager Animesh Kulkarni says his ultimate goal is to make the team known simply as Filipinas, not as domestic helpers. He also plans to have one of the SCC Divas players drafted into the Hong Kong national team within the next three years.
“We will continue to admit and train Filipinas who want to join the team as our contribution to Hong Kong cricket. But my ultimate goal is make you known not a team of domestic helpers but of Filipinas,” Kulkarni told the team after the awarding.
SCC Divas was crowned champions for the second-year running in its division in Hong Kong. The team ruled Cricket Hong Kong’s Women’s Development League for the second consecutive year via a clean sweep of the four-team division in the 2018-2019 season that ended in April.
Cricket Hong Kong handed the trophy to the SCC Divas’ founder-captain Josie Arimas and vice-captain Jennifer Alumbro at the Awarding Night in Regal Oriental on Jun 21. Kulkarni said he wants to attract Hong Kong resident Filipinas to play for Divas.
“We are now starting,” Kulkarni said when asked about when he is going to tap into the Filipino resident community to boost the team.
Assistant manager Chandrasekhar Parameswaran said the team had become a platform in the past two years for attracting more Filipinas to cricket.
“We’ve got a good pool of 30 to 50 players from the Philippines who are already here and we’ve built a core of it. Now, through your platform, we would like to invite Hong Kong Filipinos …to practice every Sunday… and they could come through the system,” said Parameswaran.
Kulkarni praised Hong Kong-based SCC Divas as unique in that it is the only Filipina team in the whole world, there being no other team of Filipina cricketers in India, England, Australia, New Zealand or elsewhere.
“SCC Divas is the only team in the world for the associate or regular members (of the International Cricket Council) having an all-Filipina team. Other development we are starting, but we will carry on and we will go global,” said Kulkarni.
Kulkarni told the team after the awarding that he is trying to arrange matches for them against the Philippine women’s cricket team in Manila in December.
His statement ties in with plans for bilateral and trilateral tournaments in December at the Philippine Cricket Association ground in Dasmariñas City, Cavite. The one-day internationals were disclosed by PCA manager Faisal Khan in a message to Arimas.
Khan said some of the Divas players would be drafted into the Philippine national team that will play the Korean, Vietnamese and Singapore national teams in December.
Kulkarni said that SCC Divas played better in the recently ended season than in their maiden season that closed in 2018.
“Very good improvement and we are hoping that next year will be much better than this year,” said Kulkarni.
Source: www.sunwebhk.com