Cricket reaches North Korea

On May 2, Taesongsan Park in Pyongyang will be the host venue for the first ever formal cricket matches in North Korea.

Two teams from Shanghai and the newly-formed Pyongyang Cricket Club will take part in a triangular Twenty20 tournament with the winners receiving the inaugural DHL Pyongyang Cricket Friendship Cup. This landmark event will take cricket into one of the last countries left where it has neither been played nor witnessed in the hope that it may start one of the most unlikely development programmes the game has ever seen.

An trio comprising a Scotsman and South African both living in Shanghai and a North Korean enthusiast from Angola have been the driving force behind an initiative that has been eight months in the planning and which will feature players from ten nations, including one 14-year-old schoolboy.

In recent years there has been a rapid expansion of the game in China where the 2010 Asian Games will include cricket for the first time. The Shanghai Cricket Club has played a key role in the game's expansion in the country.