On a Monday night in October in Sydney’s west, a social game of tape ball cricket served as a vision for the sport’s new era. The tennis ball was wrapped in electrical tape, as is normal to the variant born in Karachi. The players were largely of Pakistani descent. Families watched, children played along the boundary.
It was an otherwise normal game of the accessible form of cricket that has proven popular across South Asia since its development in Pakistan 60 years ago. What was different was how Cricket Australia looked at it. There was $3,000 in prize money, it was held under lights at Cricket NSW’s showpiece venue Blacktown International Sports Park, and the match – won by the Cheetahs over the Falcons – decided the first winner of the trophy that carries the name of BBL club Sydney Thunder.
