‘We're strong in all departments’ – Chris Carter
Zimbabwe is familiar territory for Chris Carter, the 20-year-old Hong Kong wicket-keeper. Carter was born in Hong Kong and raised in Australia but spent time in Zimbabwe, the country his parents are from, as a child. "The Zimbabwean culture is definitely a part of my life," said Carter after touching down to take part in the Cricket World Cup Qualifier.
Hong Kong have never played in the ICC Cricket World Cup, but Carter holds out hope that the team under Babar Hayat can make the grade this time, and backed the batsmen and spinners to do the bulk of the work.
The team's batting can be "blistering", said Carter. "We play on small grounds in Hong Kong so a lot of our players are used to hitting big sixes or using boundary hitting as a way of scoring. So you’ll notice some of our players like Babar and Nizakat (Khan) play a very big role. Nizakat can hit it to all places on the ground, places that not many other batsmen can. So I’d definitely say [our strength is] our batting.
“Our bowling has come on in leaps and bounds and our spin bowling also would definitely be up there. We have two world-class spinners in Nadeem (Ahmed) and Ehsan Khan, who was recently picked in the Associate Team of the Year. So we do have strengths in all departments.”
Hong Kong are in Group B of the qualifiers, clustered with Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Nepal and Scotland. Afghanistan are at No.10 and Zimbabwe at No.11 in the MRF Tyres ICC ODI Men’s Team Rankings, and appear to be the toughest nuts for Hong Kong to crack in the first round.
“In tournaments like these when you come up against higher-ranked teams, you’ve got to try things and really take it to them," said Carter. "Everyone in our group we have beaten before. We’ve beaten Zimbabwe prior to the 2014 T20 World Cup. We’ve beaten Afghanistan many times before. Scotland, and Nepal we only beat recently in October. So it’s good to have that confidence knowing that we have beaten these teams and we can."
“But we feel the two to beat will be Zimbabwe and Afghanistan. If we can win one of those games, and hopefully win one against Scotland or Nepal, we should progress to the Super Sixes and take it from there.”
Dealing with the conditions might be easier for Hong Kong because they chose to spend time in Pretoria, South Africa prior to arriving in Zimbabwe.
“We have obviously seen it’s very wet, it’s been raining a lot, so we expect a lot of pitches to be quite soft. So we’ll take that into consideration in our plans. We experienced similar conditions on our pre-tour in Pretoria. So we’ve had a bit of experience in similar conditions and hopefully that will stand us in good stead."
Carter made his senior Hong Kong debut in 2015 and has played nine ODIs and 10 T20Is, to go with five first-class appearances.
“I’ve only truly been involved in the system for the last four years when I moved back to Hong Kong after finishing school. And in that time it’s just come on in leaps and bounds. It’s so much more professional, with full-time contracts being implemented, sports institutes, funding, and we are touring a lot more now than we ever have before. And with all the infrastructure we have in place, we can just honestly see Hong Kong cricket improving. And hopefully we’re given opportunities to do so on the world stage.”
Carter also knows that he has to raise his numbers with the bat – he currently averages 15.57 in ODIs and 13.75 in T20Is. “I don’t feel my position is cemented at all. But the age thing has never been a factor because our team is so young anyway. A lot of our players are 20, 21, 22. Our vice-captain here is 22. So there’s never been much pressure to perform with age; it’s always just the usual pressure to perform of being part of the team."
Hong Kong take on Scotland in their first match of the CWCQ on 6 March in Bulawayo.