by Anura Guruge
on October 19, 2021
I knew the name ‘Namibia‘ — but had not heard it in years, if not a decade. I knew it was near ‘South Africa‘, BUT if you had asked me to point to it on a map I would have been 800 miles off — horizontally (i.e., roughly the right latitude, but I would have been way off to the east). Wow. That is bad. I am dreadfully embarrassed & kind of sad. I was good at geography at school — but in the 1950s/1960s the world, quite literally, was a simpler place. There wasn’t as many countries. It appears that we had 104 countries in the world in 1950. Today’s we have 195!
That means the number of countries in the world have nearly doubled in my adult lifetime! That is sobering.
Something now bothers me about Namibia’s T20 cricket squad. How come it is nearly all white? Only 7% of the population is white. Initially, when I watched them bat (all under helmets), I did NOT notice any non-whites. But, when I saw them field I saw one. Appears that maybe they have two non-whites on the team. I won’t even mention the composition of the South Africa team — because there is the touchy issue of quotas, i.e., they have to select some non-whites. Hhhhmmm.
I would also have had trouble getting ‘Oman’ right on a map. This is bad — & it is a BIG country. I really need to spend some time staring at a NEW world map.
I did know where ‘Papua New Guinea’ was. That at least was good.
The truly global reach of cricket is becoming humbling. There are at least 106 countries that are now registered as cricket playing nations — that wish to be recognized as such. That is 54% of all the countries in the world. Not bad for what used to a sport restricted to countries with a British heritage.
