On the stump: Cricket bats for harmony
On the sandy wastes of the Middle East, in gangland Los Angeles or in the sun-kissed Caribbean, cricket is breaking down barriers and creating controversial alliances.
While the Ashes battle between England and Australia continues to dominate the attention of the game's devotees this week – the fourth Test started at Headingley yesterday – cricket is playing the role of peace-maker in some of the world's most conflicted areas.
The Cricket For Change group, which was created 30 years ago, recently took its 'street cricket' from inner-city London to the desert where Bedouin and Jewish children played the game together in the town of Beersheva.
"Here we have a chance with the young kids: they've not yet been brainwashed into separation, and there's no need for it. That might sound naive. But there isn't any need," said Tom Rodwell, the head of Cricket for Change.
There appeared to be some hope as the message seemed to be getting through. Eleven-year-old Abdullah played with Jewish children for the first time in his life.
"I felt really good, because I felt I was playing with good people," he said.
On the other side of the world, the Compton Cricket Club tries to divert teenagers away from the bloody gang battles which are a daily routine in one of Los Angeles' toughest neighbourhoods. The Compton club was set-up in 1995 with definite goals to unite the neighbourhoods.
"The aim of playing cricket is to teach people how to respect themselves and respect authority so they stop killing each other," said president Ted Hayes, who was introduced to the game in Beverly Hills by Katy Haber, a British-born film producer.
The club have even sung the praises of the sport in a rap song, Bullets. "From bullets to balls. From the streets of concrete to the grass and mats. We're playing cricket," is one line from the song which was voted one of the top cricket tunes of all time in a recent poll by the Guardian newspaper.
Meanwhile, New York police are using cricket to build stronger links with Asian expatriates living in the city. They have decided to organise a Twenty20 tournament in the city, with 10 teams and 170 players involved this summer.
Deputy Inspector Amin Kosseim of the New York Police Department Community Affairs Bureau, said: "The Muslim community is not a community we had great outreach to in the past."
Cricket has helped to bridge the gap.
The popular sport is also taking on diplomatic power, particularly in the Caribbean where China and Taiwan have been locked in a multi-million dollar game of intrigue with key political alliances at stake.
For the 2007 World Cup, China financed stadiums in Antigua, Grenada and Jamaica while Taiwan backed the venues at St Vincent and St Kitts. And two weeks ago, Windsor Park in Dominica upgraded at a cost of $17 million (Dh62.5m), became cricket's latest international venue when the West Indies played Bangladesh.
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