Saudi Arabian Cricket Federation targets grassroots to change perception of the sport across the Kingdom, says CEO

RIYADH: CEO of the Saudi Arabian Cricket Federation Tariq Ziad Sagga has outlined the plans that set the Kingdom’s nascent national team on the path to winning the inaugural ACC Men’s Challenger Cup 2023 in Bangkok last week, highlighting the domestic and grassroots level programs that have been implemented in percent years.

Cricket is one of the world’s oldest popular sports and has been part of many cultures for centuries. Now the SACF, established as recently as 2020, has been thriving and has introduced a cricketing culture across the Kingdom in the blink of an eye by lining up a series of major programs focused on promoting the game among locals and expatriates.

“The Saudi cricket federation was established (just over) two years ago, and we have plans to implement domestic programs for cricket locally,” said Sagga in an exclusive interview with Arab News. “For example, our main championship is the National Cricket Championship, which started in 2021 with 11 cities and featured more than 400 teams, clubs and Under-16 associations, and over 30,000 participants. This year, participation will exceed 50,000.

“The second tournament we had was softball cricket in six cities and total participation exceeded 10,000 in 2022. This year hopefully it will exceed 15,000,” said the CEO.

Other programs include community cricket programs, such as Father’s Day and Mother’s Day cricket.

“Some of the national events are for National day and Founding Day of Saudi Arabia. For other cricketing nations like India and Pakistan, we do social events, and we have a different program,” Sagga said.

“We had the school cricket program, which we implemented in international schools in the main cities like Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam,” he