“Underdog team” wins big at the South East Asian Cricket Games

By Chi Yan Ng

Have you ever represented your country on an international level? If so, how long did you have to train for? Whatever the length, it would be much more than one day a week and for several years. What countries do you think are the strongest in International Cricket games? It’s likely the majority of people would think of India or Pakistan. Would anyone think of the Philippines—of the domestic helpers working in Hong Kong who use every Sunday just to practice and compete?

In the recent South East Asian Cricket Games hosted by Cambodia, two of the Women’s Filipino teams secured silver medals, which includes members of the SCC Divas, a Hong Kong-based all-Filipino team. This was the first time the Philippines sent out a cricket team at these games and brought home medals.

“Even though there is a cricket association in the Philippines, it is not a well-known sport amongst Philippines locals,” said Lolita Angeles Olagiuer, a member of the SCC Divas with six years of cricket experience. Mr Animesh Kulkarni and Ms Josie Arimas started the team in 2017 by recruiting their friends to join. There are currently about forty players in the group, that can be split into two teams of eleven players.

“As Sunday is our consistent rest day in the week, it is the only training or competition day,” said Chandra, who is the team’s coach. Some players choose to use their free time and any rest time to study techniques, scoring and terminology through tutorial videos.

Moreover, some of these domestic helpers have played similar sports before, having a prior understanding of the skills, techniques and terminology needed. “I have a background sport which is softball when I was a varsity student way back in high school, so it wasn’t difficult to learn the sport even though we have limited time,” said Joanna, a domestic helper who has worked in Hong Kong for six years.

In the South East Asian games, the SCC Divas’ match was against the host nation Cambodia in both the T10 and six-a-side formats. For context, the T10 format is a shorter version of the T20 format and the game lasts for about 90 minutes and a 10-minute break after an innings. In a T10 game, there are a maximum of 10 overs, which are groups of six deliveries of the ball from the bowler to a batsman and single innings. As for the six-a-side format, this refers to only having six players per team on the court compared to the usual eleven which would mean only four players fielding when you also account for the bowler and wicket-keeper.

“Our coach explained to the team that if we play to our potential, we will have an opportunity to win a medal if we win the group game and top the group,” said Olagiuer.

They won their game and had an opportunity to win gold, yet in a turn of events another team scored higher than them, so instead they obtained two silver medals.

“The matches against some of the younger players were aggressively played,” expressed Joelle Gallapin, who has previously worked in Hong Kong as a domestic helper for eight years. “Cambodia had some young cricketers and were good in fielding and batting.”

When interviewed about the team’s goals for the future, Olagiuer stated, “Now that we have experience competing in the South East Asian Cricket Games, we want to compete in even more international games [as there is a South East Asian Cricket Game hosted every two years] with the ultimate aim of winning medals in front of our own crowd in 2033.” Agreeing with Olaguier’s wishes, Galapin too wants to “go for a gold medal!”

Conversely, Chandra’s and Joanna’s wishes focus more on the opportunity for the team to become role models for Filipinos worldwide. Chandra wishes to “promote and popularise cricket amongst Philippine women and get many more people to join our SCC Divas team.” While Joanna aims to become “popular all over the world and become an inspiration to all Filipino people. Also, to show them that we are great, have massive skills and can help our families out whilst being assured that we can live life [well even] if we are not capable of doing this [anymore].”

The SCC Divas’ monumental success during their first international game should not be left without celebration — we can only expect them to play more matches soon and compete at the South East Cricket Games in 2033, held in their home country.