After a long week cooking and cleaning in the cramped households of Hong Kong, a group of Philippine domestic workers are using their Sunday off for an unlikely hobby: cricket.
They are proving rather good at it.
Despite no background in the game, scant coaching and little time, the SCC Divas have made a startling impact, winning Hong Kong’s development league twice in their first two seasons and going unbeaten since stepping up to the main divisions this year.
Photo: AFP
Along the way, they have inspired the Philippines’ first national women’s cricket team, providing seven of its players, while shaking up Hong Kong’s sleepy cricket scene, a remnant of British colonialism.
“We are all domestic helpers. Some are new players, having their first time holding a cricket ball,” said Josie Arimas, 52, captain and founder of the SCC Divas.
The satisfying clunk of bat on ball, at the scenic Po Kong Village Cricket Ground overlooked by green hills and tower blocks, is a world away from daily life for the Divas.
Photo: AFP
Many of them work from 6am till midnight, six days a week, scrubbing, shopping and looking after kids, to support their own children and families back in the Philippines.
They get “no rest. They’re tough,” Arimas said.
Tales of abuse and exploitation abound among Hong Kong’s 400,000 foreign domestic workers, most of them from the Philippines or Indonesia.
One domestic worker watching the Divas said that rather than the government-mandated rest day every week, her employer gives her just six hours off a month, and makes her sleep in the living room.
For Divas player Liza Avelino, cricket is a chance to escape the difficulties of everyday life.
“It’s very relaxing, it makes my day worthwhile,” she said. “It’s good to be active, and you forget all stress and the troubles and everything.”
During this month’s 45-run win over the Cavaliers, a team from the venerable and well-heeled Hong Kong Cricket Club, the Divas’ skills honed in baseball, a popular sport in the Philippines, were in evidence.
Positive hitting helped set a challenging total of 167-6, before the Divas restricted the Cavaliers to 122-4 with some energetic fielding including, two side-on, direct hits on the stumps.
The team was cheered on throughout by a vocal band of teammates and supporters, who picnicked by the boundary rope and operated the scoreboard.
“They’re so passionate about it. They all come here and they all watch, and they make a day of it,” said Cavaliers captain Tracy Walker, an independent board member of Cricket Hong Kong.
“They get one day off a week, and what do they do? They come and sit and watch, cheer along, train whenever they can. It’s pretty impressive,” Walker said.
Just three years after their founding in 2017, the Divas have already formed a development team, SCC Pinay, and aim to be a lasting force in Hong Kong cricket.
Team manager Aminesh Kulkarni, who founded the team with Arimas and raises sponsorship to pay for dues, equipment and other expenses, said the aim is to provide a positive pastime for domestic workers on their day off.
“The Filipinos have that gathering culture. So if one comes, a few come. One player started spending time here, and now we have 32,” Kulkarni said. “My aim is finally about 200. It is going to happen in the next couple of years.”
Alvina Tam, Cricket Hong Kong’s director of development and a Cavaliers player, said that the Divas had added a new element to the sport in the territory, which is dominated by the expat and South Asian community.
“What they brought into women’s cricket in Hong Kong was their sense of unity, the sense of teamwork and working together,” Tam said.
“And at the same time they can still maintain a very friendly attitude towards the opposition as well. I think that’s a very good show of sportsmanship,” she added.
For the Divas players, separated from their families and living far from home, the team also serves as a support network, Avelino said.
“It’s not just about sport, it’s also about having a family to meet up with. It’s a very close kinship, a sisterhood,” she said.
“Being away from home, to have a group of people doing the same thing is very empowering. We love it and we look forward to doing it on Sunday,” she added.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later