- The Observer,
- Sunday January 6 2002
On Rue de Liberte, removed from the chaos of Tangiers, is the warm and eccentric El Minzah Hotel, where you can smell the nostalgia even above the pungent aroma of the Friday-night markets. It is a place made for a Charles Boyer entry, to a Charles Trenet soundtrack. This is still an establishment from which tourists shamelessly take home the headed notepaper and monogrammed towels, where staff hover in silk pantaloons, and a fez does not induce fits of Tommy Cooper impersonations.
It is very French, so colonial. Patronised by mutton and their lovers, as well as nouveau riche young Parisians, the Minzah is a stylish reminder that there were once other empires. And it is not a place you would normally expect to be discussing the merits of Sachin Tendulkar or speculating over a visit from Brian Lara. In this incongruous setting, sipping sweet Arabic tea in the piano bar tucked away off the cool courtyard, I listened to a worldly businessman describe how cricket is taking a grip in north Africa - and how the citizens of Tangiers this summer might see their chaotic old city host their first international, even though Morocco is on the edge of the cricketing map, a mere affiliate member.
Bassem Afifi's business card describes him as Directeur des projets of 'Golf Village Project', a £20million complex 15 minutes' drive from downtown Tangiers. In a short time, his team have built for Hercules International Sports Tangier a small but neat cricket ground, tacked on to the Royal Tangiers Golf Club, an institution that attracts the active interest of the King of Morocco, as well as the rich elite of Tangiers.
It is one of a dozen venues in Morocco catering for 400 cricketers and nine clubs. Juniors, drawn by the novelty and, Afifi concedes, the simple inducement of pocket money, are flocking to classes run by the former Indian all-rounder Mohinder Armanath, his brother Surinder and Narayan Rao Satham. Equipment and coaching are provided free.
Of more global significance than this rise in cricket's popularity among Moroccan youngsters is the powerplay that is bubbling up in the game.
The diplomatic scuffle that briefly threatened England's recent tour of India - the stand-off between the ICC and India's former ICC president, Jagmohan Dalmiya, over what were essentially petty issues - is symptomatic of deeper conflicts. After 119 years of hegemony in the running of Test cricket, the establishment is disturbed by the challenge from the subcontinent, where cold-eyed business is supplanting tradition. The rules are changing, inside and outside cricket's legislature.
That much became clear when it was proposed last week that, because of security concerns in Kashmir, Pakistan move their upcoming home series against the West Indies to one of three neutral venues: Dhaka, Sharjah or, most unlikely of all, Tangiers.
That prospect - provided for in recent ICC rules changes - alarms the recognised opinion-makers. Wisden recently said of such anarchy: 'The danger is that the whole thing will get out of hand, and the ICC will lose control of venues. It could devalue Test cricket even more than has happened already.'
To further fuel their paranoia, there are plans to build stadiums in Saudi Arabia, in major centres such as Riyadh, Jeddah and Dhahran. Afifi, whose business is construction, says,:'They are so cheap. You can build a good stadium for £4million. The weather is perfect and so is the location. It is in between West and East. When it is 10am here, it is still in good viewing time further east. The weather is mild. There is a rainy season but it is not monsoonal. It comes quickly, then goes. With good covers, you can handle the rain. The underground drainage system I have installed can move any rainwater within an hour.'
Afifi has a French groundsman, who learnt his craft on the golf clubs of southern France - so Afifi supervised the laying the five pitches himself. Covers have been flown in from Britain, along with rollers and mowers. There is a staff of 15 to keep it all in trim. It could be Bristol or Chelmsford.
Dhaka, where Pakistan are playing Bangladesh this month, might be favourite to host the series against the West Indies, and Sharjah, scene of so many weird and suspect one-day results is handily only an hour's flying time from Karachi. So Tangiers, for all its resonance of bohemian excess and intrigue (what self-respecting member of the Barmy Army wouldn't relish a visit to the jazz- fuelled waterfront once roamed by Burgess and Burroughs?), is only an outside chance of getting the series. But Afifi is certain his little ground will get its turn sooner or later. 'I think in April, or maybe June.'
The word is that the West Indies are the likeliest visitors. Pakistan, starved of international cricket because of the running conflicts near their borders, will try to squeeze in as many one-day games as they can before the next World Cup - as much to sharpen their game as to peg back a $17m shortfall in income. Tangiers might get lucky.
Inevitably, it all started with an Englishman. Mark Surridge, when working here several years ago, inquired about the possibility of playing a game. After advice from Michael Blumberg, the publisher of Cricket World , Surridge made contact with the offices of Abdur Rahman Bukhatir, the entrepreneur who pretty much runs cricket around here. The now-defunct Barcelona Cricket Club subsequently toured and an early spark of interest was ignited. That fire has been considerably fanned since.
While it holds only a few thousand and there are approach roads still to level out and trees to plant, Tangiers cricket ground's ambitions are aimed a little higher than hosting the domestic tournaments that have recently proved so successful. The game might have many friends in high places here (the King is a fan), but few are better placed than the satellites which beam cricket across the subcontinent.
Cricket is watched by hundreds of millions in India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, and many of those are glued to mobile phones to post their bets with the army of underground bookies who have largely escaped detection by a succession of investigators. As Afifi says: 'The cricket business is a very rich one.'
One of those keen to spread the lucrative gospel is Zahid Noorani, the chief executive of the Cricketers Benefit Fund Series, who have sponsored cricket's growth here for several years and are financing the current project. 'Tangiers is possible [for the Pakistan-West Indies series],' Noorani said by phone from his headquarters in Sharjah. 'It is fully operational, but I think the rainy season is against it for February. Maybe later.'
CBFS have driven the growth of one-day cricket since the late 1970s and Sharjah has staged 181 internationals, more than any other nation. The man behind the flowering of cricket is the long-time friend of Afifi's, Bukhatir, who once ran a construction business in the Midlands, and is regarded as 'the father of cricket' in the region.
Afifi knows him well. 'He comes from the UAE and fell in love with cricket when he played it at university in Pakistan. He is the one man who has run all this. I have known him for 25 years, working in construction consultancy. We had a very small cricket ground first in Sharjah as long ago as 1974. It has grown now to the stage of being a central part of the city. Now he is developing an English-language sports TV station in Dubai.'
Bukhatir, alongside the international TV rights negotiator Mark Mascarenhas, recognised some time ago that television was the key to making money from a game which, because of low incomes, could not expect to generate big revenue at the gate. Mascarenhas negotiated a $500m deal for World Cup rights which included provision for development of the game through the welter of one-day tournaments in places such as Dhaka and Sharjah. It seems Tangiers will now come into that loop.
Afifi sees no reason why the expansion cannot continue. He is also well placed to recognise a key irony in the spread of an English game in an Arab setting, at the very time when Muslim and Western sensitivities are on such a knife edge.
Afifi comes from a wealthy, landed family who were driven from Palestine after the formation of Israel. They moved to Lebanon, he married an Irishwoman, spent 15 years in Dublin (three of his children grew up there) and returned to see the blossoming of a confident new Arab world, where businessmen challenged the power of old masters.
Bukhatir, Narooni, Dalmiya and Mascarenhas are from that new school. They are giving cricket a fresh face in an exotic environment, and tweaking a few noses in the process. It is not to everyone's liking. But they thought the same about Kerry Packer. What possibly could be the difference?
