Blind cricket catches on in Bangladesh

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By Mark Dummett BBC News, Bangladesh

Blind cricket has been played around the world for decades but recently a modified form of the game was introduced to cricket-mad Bangladesh.

Hafizur Rahman is the Ian Botham of the nascent blind cricket scene in Bangladesh.

Hafizur hopes that one day they will be able to form a Bangladesh national side and challenge other countries

He wears the same wrap-around sun glasses and sports a mullet, the straggly hairstyle popular with English sportsmen of the 1980s.

Hafizur, who likes to be called The Bullet, is an enthusiast and a veteran of the game. For 17 years, he played club cricket in Dhaka and coached a youth team.

But in 2003, his eyesight started to go.

He travelled to the south Indian city of Madras (Chennai) for an operation but it was unsuccessful.

He remembers a doctor there telling him not to give up hope.

He can still see a bit but only out of the corners of his eyes. When he runs he has to tilt his head sideways. But that has not put him off.

'Practice makes perfect'

He was the captain of the red team, which took on the green team, at the blind cricket match I went to watch last week.

In Bangladesh it is difficult to find the space to play cricket

He almost won the game single-handedly.

"Practice," Hafizur said afterwards, "makes a man perfect."

This is his message to the young men who make up the rest of his team.

He hopes that one day they will be able to form a Bangladesh national side and then challenge other countries.

"Then," Hafizur says, "my dream will have come true and we will have proved that we are not disabled but that we are differently challenged people."

That still seems a long way off.

The game I saw was one of the first to be played in Bangladesh. Blind cricket was only introduced here in May.

Rules of the game

It is played in a dozen other countries and was invented in Australia in 1922.

Disabled people also want to contribute and make the world enjoyable for all Musharaff Hossein, Action on Disability and Development

Its basic rules are the same as regular cricket but there are some key differences.

Firstly the two teams need to have the same balance of players who are completely blind and those who, like Hafizur, can see to a certain extent.

That means that, while a blind player will bat, bowl or throw the ball entirely by himself when he is running or looking for the ball, he can be helped and guided by team mates with slighter better vision.

Then there is the ball itself. It looks like a normal white cricket ball but it is softer and lighter, and it rattles.

The bowlers bowl underarm. They roll the ball along the ground towards the batsman who then, when he hears it, has to hit it as hard as he can.

The game then moves along at a surprisingly fast pace.

The match I saw was as noisy and as competitive as any I have seen on the subcontinent, where cricket is by far the most popular sport.

Lack of space

In Bangladesh the challenge for anyone wanting to play - whether they are blind or not - is to find somewhere to do so.

People with disablities generally find life very difficult in Bangladesh

Half the country spends several months of every year under water. Every available bit of over-crowded land is built on, lived on or farmed, so people just get used to playing where they can.

The blind cricketers are luckier.

They have been playing at one of the few private cricket grounds in Dhaka but, even so, they have had to contend with a water-logged and bumpy pitch.

It is expensive to play here as well, and they need sponsors to continue.

The star batsman of the green team - which lost this game to Hafizur's reds - is Abdul Nayeem Mamoon.

The 24-year-old is completely blind. He is a student at Dhaka University.

When he is there, and also when he is on the cricket pitch, he is helped by his partially sighted friend, Shumon.

Both played badly this time, neither - as the commentators say - troubling the scorers.

But they share Hafizur's determination to do well.

"It doesn't matter who wins and who loses," Nayeem says, "we've never been able to play sport before. If I receive the right training, I know I can overcome every barrier. Being visually impaired is not a big deal."

But the truth is that in Bangladesh having any kind of disability certainly is a big deal.

'Marginalised'

A disabled or blind child is often seen as being a terrible burden on a family. They are less likely to be put through school, get a job and start their own family, than others.

Most people, as it is, find it hard to earn a living. The price of a kilogram of rice, the staple food, has doubled in the past year but wages have not changed.

It is common for blind people to become beggars or buskers.

"The life of a disabled person is a struggle. They are the most marginalised people," says Musharaff Hossein, of the charity Action on Disability and Development, which has helped introduce blind cricket to Bangladesh.

Musharaff, who had polio as a child and walks with crutches, hopes to organise a blind cricket league, as well as the national team.

The idea is to show other Bangladeshis what visually impaired people are capable of achieving and then give them something to cheer on.

"Disabled people also want to contribute," he says, "and make the world enjoyable for all."

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Thursday, 12 June, 2008 at 1100 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the <a class="inlineText" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3187926.stm">programme schedules </a> for World Service transmission times.