South Korea women's cricket team inspired by watching Sachin Tendulkar's videos

South Korean cricketer Lee Eunjin (L) [Credit – DNA India]

It is well known that cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar enjoys huge influence in the cricket-playing countries of the world, and his reach now seems to be extending to South Korea as well. According to DNA, Nasir Khan - a cricketer of Pakistani-origin who has been living in South Korea for over 20 years - has been making local girls watch videos of Sachin Tendulkar in action in order to make them shift from other sports, mainly softball, to the game of cricket.

His efforts seem to be bearing fruit as a women’s team from South Korea are taking part in cricket, for the first time ever, at the 2014 Asian Games, and Khan’s hope is that more and more girls gravitate towards the game in the years to come.

Eunjin Lee, who is a 21-year old former lifeguard and one of the members of the team, has tried to work on her backlift by watching some of Tendulkar’s great innings.

Tendulkar’s feats serve as motivation

"She used to fret over the lack of strength in her arms, and her height. But I motivated her by showing her videos of the great man. 'See, this guy is short in stature, but he's very tall in his achievements'," Khan said.

South Korea has actually had a cricket league of its own since the early 1990s, but the league constituted of exclusively male migrants from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Australia.

It was just prior to cricket’s participation at the 2010 Asian Games that South Korea managed to form a men’s team, and they decided to have a women’s team just last year. It was then that Khan was got on board and was entrusted with the difficult task of preparing the girls for the ongoing Games.

Trip to Nepal to study cricket

Khan, subsequently, put up banners in various colleges and universities but was able to find only 20 girls, giving him an indication of the task at hand. He, then, decided to take the group to Nepal to give them more exposure on the game. When asked the reason for choosing Nepal, he said: "The girls were not ready to go to Pakistan. Sri Lanka would be too rainy and Australia too cold. We were also worried that I could be denied an Indian visa because of my Pakistani background."

The trip, which lasted for two months, was of extreme benefit according to Khan as the girls got to watch a lot of the IPL during that period and were starting to understand the game better. "It was during our stay there that the girls watched the IPL. As cricket in Asian Games is a T20 affair, the girls could understand the game better," he said.

The girls, however, were unable to implement what they had learned as they were bowled out for 57 and 49 during their two practice games against Hong Kong and China, respectively.

"It's difficult for a novice to play this game with style. I was worried they'd be confused by the rules, terms, fielding positions. But they understand all of that very well," explained Khan.

The fact that the players are able to understand the various rules and are enjoying playing the game is an extremely encouraging sign.

"I really like it very much," said Lee speaking about the game.