Why Uganda didn’t qualify
Only two days after WCL Division Two finished, the “wah wah expats” brigade are already coming out with their bullshit on why Uganda didn’t qualify for the 2009 World Cup Qualifier.
According to them, Uganda didn’t qualify because they weren’t good enough to finish fourth in a six team tournament, it’s because other teams picked some ex-pats. Well, as I said last year, tough shit.
If you can’t finish fourth in a six team tournament, then you simply were not good enough. It’s got nothing to do with who was and wasn’t playing for the other teams in the tournament, it’s because you couldn’t win enough games.
The morons who moan about ex-pats all the time still seem to think that a player can show up in Dubai and walk straight from a plane into the UAE national side. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even if a side picks 11 players born outside the country, if they’re not citizens, all but two would have been living in the country for seven years!!! A stricter residential qualification than any other sport. Surely seven years is enough to be considered part of a country?
There is no doubt that the development program in Uganda should be complemented, and I’d even accept the notion that more ICC money should be given to countries with higher percentages of so-called born and bred players, as much as I hate that term and the xenophobia usually associated with it, as shown by some commenters on this blog. But when it comes down to what happens on the playing field, if you’re not good enough to win, you shouldn’t make excuses.
Stop complaining about Oman and the UAE picking some ex-pats and start complaining about Uganda not playing well enough.
Of course Uganda would never pick an ex-pat player. Would they? Neither would Nepal, apart from Akash Gupta. Come on now, have a go at Uganda and Nepal for picking ex-pats! Wouldn’t want anyone to think you were a hypocrite would you?
Posted: December 3rd, 2007 by Andrew Nixon.
Comments: 17
Comments
Comment from Tom Mather
Time: December 3, 2007, 6:08 pm
Andrew, I think you are right. There is too much negative talk of expats. With widespread population movement and only a small number of countries where cricket is a major sport, team selection is bound to be affected. But so what. So long as it doesn’t stop development within that country it shouldn’t matter.
Importing players from abroad to represent you is unpopular if it happens too often and is done in a lazy way to avoid doing the hard work yourself. But this is a separate issue. You shouldn’t be picking teams by drawing up racial quotas.
Comment from Roland Ilube
Time: December 3, 2007, 9:04 pm
Andrew,
I am curious about the example you give with respect to Uganda. I had thought that the issue was about players who had come through one country’s cricket system and then moved to represent another country. Is this the case with Nandi Patel or are you defining expat as anyone born in a country other than the one that they represent?
Comment from Andrew Nixon
Time: December 3, 2007, 9:15 pm
Roland - The standard definition of ex-pat would certainly exclude those who have spent a significant portion of their life in a country they weren’t born in, but a significant number of people class anyone not born in the country they play for as ex-pats.
I would have a problem if a player turned up in a country for the first time and was playing for the national team in a matter of days (unless the player already had a family connection with the country) and that doesn’t happen, despite some people still being under the delusion that all these players turn up off the boat and start playing for the cricket team, or that they’re bought or imported in some way.
Comment from Rich B
Time: December 4, 2007, 2:21 am
Yes, you’re right in a lot of this. But your misunderstanding of some of your readers is at best way off the mark, at worst insulting.
Time and time again commenters express opinions like Nasir just did, and time and time again you cut them down with all the subtlety of Bernard Manning.
Nobody who comments on this blog is a xenophobe or a racist, they just sometimes think differently from you. If you want to gain a name as a respected cricket journalist you’re going to have to learn to write better copy than this.
And if you want people to carry on reading your blog you’ll have to respect your readers a lot more than you currently do.
Comment from Andrew Nixon
Time: December 4, 2007, 6:49 am
Rich - I have never accused Nasir of xenophobia. I think his opinions on “ex-pats” are unrealistic, irrational, and just plain wrong, but I have never said they were xenophobic. I don’t like the “born and bred” term because that is often used in a xenophobic or racist context.
I have accused one commenter at this blog of xenophobia, and I think with good reason.
I do wonder why some people are so quick to blame other teams for picking “ex-pats” instead of looking closer to home, but whether they do that out of xenophobia or racism, or they misguided, or for some other reason, we can only speculate. I just wish they’d blame teams for not playing well.
Comment from Om
Time: December 4, 2007, 9:57 am
Andrew,What you think another two team of World cup Qualifier 2009?Nepal have reach this tournaments.Now,I think ACC team are strong side in this moment.I belive Nepal and Afganistan would go to WCQ 2009.
Comment from Roland Ilube
Time: December 4, 2007, 10:47 am
Andrew,
I agree with Rich B about the way you put your points across. It is up to you whether to take his advice or not, for all I know you may not be interested in gaining respect or maintaining your readership but in my view the use of words like “morons” does not stimulate constructive debate and gets in the way of the often valid points that you make
Comment from Dave of Darwin
Time: December 4, 2007, 12:50 pm
Selection seems to be a perennial issue for Uganda. I was amazed that two players who performed so well in WCL Div 3 in Darwin just six months ago, Charles Waiswa and Junior Kwebiha could not even make the squad, especially when two other players from Darwin (Patrick Ochan and Jimmy Okello) are serving life bans having absconded in Australia.
Comment from Andrew Nixon
Time: December 4, 2007, 2:38 pm
Roland - perhaps Morons is too much of a harsh word, but it gets frustrating that people seem to be thinking more of ways to make other teams worse than how to make Uganda, Nepal, etc better.
Comment from Tom Lewis
Time: December 4, 2007, 8:59 pm
Dave- Kwebiha couldn’t get time off work whereas Waiswa and Mukasa were not picked for disiplinary reasons.
Comment from Nick Deverell
Time: December 4, 2007, 10:34 pm
Uganda didn’t qualify because they did not pick their strongest team. Plenty of good reasons were given, but at the end of the day they ended up cutting off their nose to spite their face. A real shame - hopefully they can still recover and qualify for the 2009 tournament, but they have certainly made it harder for themselves.
As to the ‘expats’ issue, as far as I’m concerned if a player has fulfilled the qualification criteria, he has essentially decided to call that country home and has put in plenty to cricket development there.
It would however be nicer to see teams that have strong development structures do well, and in time i think we will - at the moment, it is still very early for these programs really to show their true worth.
Comment from Andrew Nixon
Time: December 5, 2007, 7:42 am
Some more on why Uganda performed so badly can be found here: http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/30/600464
It includes some comment from their coach, who lays the blame firmly at the feet of his own players.
Comment from Nathan Webb
Time: December 5, 2007, 7:44 am
Uganda have definitely cut off their noses, and they did the same with Ochan and Okello. Instead of slapping them with life bans, they should have taken a reasonable approach and let the players decide where they wanted to live by their own free will. If they ever decide to return to Uganda, then they should be welcomed with open arms as better developed and mature players. That is pretty much the attitude that Ireland has to players in England. Instead, now they will never return and will be lost to Ugandan cricket forever.
They shouldn’t treat the players as prisoners, preventing them from escaping. The board’s fear is that if they treat them lightly, then more players will abandon ship, however as the Ugandan boxers have shown recently (with a few of them fleeing while on tour), a tough stance simply won’t work.
Comment from Roland Ilube
Time: December 5, 2007, 10:24 am
Nathan,
I don’t think that the firm stance taken by the UCA vis-a-vis Ochan/Okello is aimed at deterring others from following suit so much as demonstrating to the outside world that the Ugandan authorities are not condoning this sort of thing. When the Okello/Ochan thing happened I reminded people of what happened at the 2001 ICC trophy, when the entire West Africa team were refused visas as the Canadian authorities were concerned about them absconding. The UCA know full well that if people want to abscond they will do so, and nothing they do or don’t do will stop them, but I believe they are more worried about such occurrences making it more and more difficult for Ugandan sporting teams going abroad in the future so they want to be seen to be taking a harsh (if ultimately ineffective) line
Comment from Nathan Webb
Time: December 6, 2007, 9:05 am
That’s probably more it, however without being an expert in Uganda social politics, it’s hard for me to understand why they would then ask interpol to find and arrest the two. Whatever the reason, they have definitely gone way over the top.
Comment from mukumu
Time: December 10, 2007, 7:48 pm
I think Uganda didn’t play up to expectation because they were overconfident. They had just beaten Kenya and Bermuda and pushed Bangladesh close in a 20/20 match in Kenya and then they had also played really well a Kenya A side (made up of both senior and A side players) that toured Uganda. So I think mentally the players thought they were better than the other teams at the WCL Division 2 contest, which was a big mistake of course. It didn’t help that everybody was praising them, telling them how talented and well they were doing - nothing wrong with that but perhaps that’s where a very experienced coaching staff would have made a difference because I think even the current coaches were on the same high as the players.
Comment from Nathan Webb
Time: January 22, 2008, 9:30 am
Perhaps the final word on the poor showing by uganda can go to a local ugandan newspaper, The Monitor. They have a couple of brilliant articles on Ugandan cricket, laying the blame on a very incompetent leadership:
Let’s hope they can turn things around!
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