(CricketEurope) How long have you been General Manager of Cricket Fiji now and can you tell us a bit about your cricketing background?

(Martin Shaw) I started working with Cricket Fiji in October 2008, so I’ve been here almost a year and a half. I don’t really have a cricket playing background apart from many epic backyard Test matches with my three brothers as a youngster. While I grew up in a cricket family I always played other sports – primarily football, baseball and basketball – but I always enjoyed watching and following international cricket.

(CricketEurope) What was your main focus of concern when you first accepted the GM position?

(Martin Shaw) Surprisingly enough my main focus when I first stated, was on setting up a sound structure off the field so that we could do the things we wanted to do on the field. With the funding changes that have occurred in cricket we have moved from an organisation that operated on $160,000 budget in 2008 to having a budget of $600,000 in 2009. Managing this growth and setting up the proper staffing structure was an important focus for us in 2009 as was our constitutional review. With a professional staff being put in place it was important that our Board moved away from being an operational Board to setting policy and strategic direction. With the changes we made to our constitution, which our members fully supported, we have been able to set up a Board structure that allows that to happen. Now that we have completed that process we are beginning to concentrate on the on-field changes that need to happen. We have introduced a new national tournament structure and are continuing to invest in our development programs and refine them as we move along.

(CricketEurope) In what areas of Fiji is cricket played at the moment?

(Martin Shaw) Cricket has quite a strong playing history in Fiji although it has tailed off in the last twenty years, so we are trying to rekindle it in the areas that have previously been participating. At the moment our membership covers Suva, Nadi, Lautoka and Tailevu on the main island and we are currently working with an association in Nausori that we are confident will join up in the next couple of months. The Lau Islands are a particularly strong cricket area and we have members in Lakeba, Moce , Komo and Oneata. We are hopeful that Cicia will join up this year as well as they have played a lot of cricket there in the past.

(CricketEurope) Are there outlying areas of Fiji that maybe have the potential to contribute national players in the future with some assistance?

(Martin Shaw) One of the interesting things is that most of our national players do come from the outlying areas – it’s Suva and the main island that we need to improve in order to have them producing more national team players. The Lau islands are our traditional stronghold and most of our national players come from there. Players from Moce and Lakeba are the mainstays of national teams though they all move in to Suva to continue their cricket careers once they have been identified. When you look at our team that will travel to Nepal next month there is only three of them that didn’t learn their early cricket in the Lau islands. Now that we have new development programs in place for the other areas I am confident that players from places like Suva and Nadi will work their way into national junior teams (which is already happening) and eventually come through into the senior team.

(CricketEurope) Tell us about domestic cricket in Fiji. There is the new Elite Player League, which was a great success recently and what other competitions take place?

(Martin Shaw) We’ve made quite a few changes in this area in the past year as a way of breathing a bit of life back into the sport. The EPL was a great success and gave us for the first time an opportunity to have the best players in the country playing each other in an extended tournament under international rules. The playing standard improved as the tournament progressed so we were very pleased with that and the players are already asking when the next EPL will be held, so that is a good sign that they enjoyed the competition. We have also made a change to our flagship competition, the Easter Tournament. This competition is the opportunity for our member associations to play each other for national championship bragging rights and for the first time this year it will be played using a Twenty/20 format. We’re also hoping that a couple of overseas club teams will join the tournament which should add another dimension to it and give our players some new faces to play against. At a junior level we have also restructured our tournaments to play National Championships at Under 19, Under 17 and Under 15 level. These tournaments have been set up with two conferences – Eastern and Western – with the two conference champions playing in a National Final. The Eastern Conference consists of the teams from the Lau Islands, while the Western Conference has teams from Suva, Tailevu, Nadi and Lautoka. As cricket continues to expand we hope to have more than just the four teams in each conference, but even as it is we are pleased to have eight representative teams in each age group playing at a national level. It will assist us in our selection of National age group teams and strengthen these teams in the future. We’ve also introduced a Women’s National Championship that has recently been completed and was a great success. It’s the first time women have been allowed to play at a national tournament and they took to it with great enthusiasm.

(CricketEurope) How do you feel Fijian junior cricket is progressing at the moment?

(Martin Shaw) We’re heading in the right direction at the moment but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done before we can say that everything is going smoothly. We have Development Officers covering Suva, Nadi, Lautoka and Moce and are looking at putting on an additional DO in Lakeba this year. So they do a lot of work in the schools exposing the game to primary and high school students. What we need to do now is convert more of those students into players at club level which is the real sticking point at the moment. We are working with our local associations to get more of them playing junior cricket by running junior competitions. This happens out in the Lau islands but in Suva and the west it isn’t happening at the moment. Suva Cricket Association are looking at running their first Under 19 competition this year and we are hopeful that this will ease their eventual transition into senior club cricket.

(CricketEurope) What initiatives have you planned to boost participation rates in Fiji?

(Martin Shaw) Our Development Officers and school competitions will continue and with the new associations joining as members as well as the new junior competitions at a national level we are confident this will help boost our participation rates. In 2009 our junior participation and junior playing numbers were both up on the previous year and we believe that the playing numbers especially will continue to rise. Women’s cricket is one area that we are attacking in the hope of increasing our playing numbers. We now have women’s cricket activity in a number of areas in Fiji – Suva, Nadi, Lomary, Nausori and Moce, so we have made a good start. As mentioned above we held our first National Women’s Championship this month which was hugely successful. With five teams playing a round robin competition the tournament went for a week and the women loved it. They were so excited to finally be given the chance to play at a national level and are committed to going back to their regions and helping the women’s game grow. The selection of a Women’s National team to play in Samoa in February will also help by giving all players something to aim for.

(CricketEurope) And where does cricket rate in terms of popularity in Fiji?

(Martin Shaw) Every sport runs a distant second to rugby in Fiji, especially 7’s rugby, so it can be tough to win the hearts and minds of the people, corporate and media at times. The three main sports in the country are rugby, football and netball but we are slowly gaining a greater media and public profile. The new competitions we have put in place have helped in that regard with the EPL and National Women’s Championship gaining great media coverage. However, there is nothing like success at an international level to impress Fijians so a good showing in Nepal will help to give us a kick along.

(CricketEurope) Is there television coverage of cricket either on free to air or satellite?

(Martin Shaw) We get a bit of international cricket come into the country but it is all on pay-per-view satellite television, so the great majority of the country doesn’t get to see it for financial reasons which is a great shame. We need to get the game on free to air so that the public can see our sport played at a high level and our players can see how the best in the world play the game. As you can imagine, cricket is a difficult game to explain to those who have never seen it so greater television coverage would help enormously.

(CricketEurope) I noticed that Maciu Gauna, Josaia Baba and Joe Rika all played club cricket in Australia this season. Was it a success for them and will this happen each season from now on?

(Martin Shaw) The three placements have been a great success and definitely something that we will look to continue in the future and expand if possible. Unfortunately Joe Rika had to return early due to personal reasons but the exposure he got in the two months he played in Brisbane was worth two years of training in Fiji. Similarly, Maciu Gauna has benefited greatly from his three months in Wollongong. His statistics speak for themselves but the improvement in him has been significant and couldn’t have come at a better time. Jo Baba has been playing First Grade in Illawarra and continues to benefit from the placement and is even looking at gaining permanent residency to help improve his cricket. We are keen for these placements to continue in the future as we realise their importance for our national team players. There is no substitute for the continuous training at a high level that our players get when training and playing club cricket in Test playing countries. We are already looking at some exciting options next summer and could even expand the program to include a couple of our female national team members.

(CricketEurope) The national team leaves for the World Cricket League Division 5 tournament in Nepal shortly. How is the side preparing for the tournament?

(Martin Shaw) They are preparing really well and Suva’s rain is staying away, which doesn’t often happen at this time of year so we haven’t lost many sessions. Coming off the EPL the squad has stepped up their training since the beginning of the year and we are confident that they will be in good form come the tournament. Coach Steve Jenkin has mapped out his preparation plan and is working well with the assistant coaches to bring the team to where we need them. There has been a lot of work done on fine tuning techniques and preparing them for how we think the Nepal wickets will play. Fielding has also been a priority in training as that let us down badly at the last WCL in Tanzania. It is an area all the players have picked up on in the past year so look for it to be one of our strengths come Nepal. We’ll arrive in Kathmandu on February 12th which will give us a good opportunity to acclimatise to the colder weather (anything below 20 degrees is very cold for Fijians) as well as the altitude. We believe this should allow the players the best chance to get used to the different conditions and be ready to play come the first game.

(CricketEurope) Are there any matches scheduled for the national squad between now and Nepal?

(Martin Shaw) We’ll play some intra-squad games and have a match against a Western Team in Nadi before we leave. At the moment we are finalising the training and playing schedule in our lead up days in Kathmandu, but it will involve a couple of games and training sessions.

(CricketEurope) And how do you rate this squad compared to previous ones you've had over the last two years?

(Martin Shaw) I think the difference with this squad is the age breakup of the players. For the last few tournaments in the lead up to our last WCL we had taken teams that comprised a lot of older players, but this wasn’t helping with our results or keeping young players in the game. Over the past twelve months we have given a lot of young players an opportunity at international level and will be taking 3 players from last year’s Under 19 team to Nepal and another 6 who are still in their 20’s. Where we have older players they are still earning their place on talent so it is a well balanced squad. We are hoping for an improved performance with the batting as a lot of work has gone in to refining players’ techniques over the past year. It has traditionally been a weakness with Fijian teams but we are beginning to see things changing and hope that this becomes evident in Nepal. You should find that in most games we will have a deep batting line up with all players able to score runs, even the tailenders who can hit away. Our bowling is balanced with plenty of options. We have a good mix of quicks, some handy medium pace and swing bowlers as well as three spinners, so the skipper shouldn’t be short of options if he needs a change. They should be a lot more disciplined in their bowling than previous teams and will bowl a far better line and length.

(CricketEurope) In five years time, where do you hope cricket in Fiji is positioned on the world stage and what participation numbers are you aiming for in that period?

(Martin Shaw) I never like to predict the future too closely as we never know what it has in store for us. With regard to playing numbers we are looking for a steady increase over time – no number predictions, just a steady increase will please us. It’s a sign that we are doing our development work properly and a healthy indicator for the game. On the international scene it is always hard to know as the World Cricket League is going through a stage where countries are still settling into their rightful places. Some of the new countries are shooting up the table while some of the more established countries are still finding their level, and I think we fall into the latter category. We probably won’t really know where everybody stands for a couple of years while everything settles. In the medium to long term we would like to see Fiji playing in WCL 3 but our first test of that will come in Nepal. We feel that if we get everything right WCL 3 is a realistic ambition and what would be really pleasing is to achieve that using players who are born and bred Fijian and have learned their cricket in Fiji, which is something that not all countries in WCL can claim.

(CricketEurope) Finally, what are the most urgent needs for cricket in Fiji?

(Martin Shaw) Like all sporting organisations there are plenty of things that we would like to be able to change quickly in order to improve our sport. We need more grounds and greater access to affordable cricket equipment. We have to invest more time and resources into developing coaches and umpires, though we are beginning to make some inroads with our coaches. We need more people on the ground doing development work in the schools and far greater corporate support for the sport. Our national teams need an indoor training venue and our local associations have to change their outlook on what they should be providing to their members. It all sounds a bit pessimistic but it isn’t. These are our challenges and we can continue to work on them to make cricket in Fiji stronger. There are so many positives happening at the moment as the sport goes through a resurgence that we shouldn’t lose sight of them. We have increased membership and playing numbers, a much better tournament structure and development officers doing great work in the schools. Women’s cricket has started and will only get stronger as more females take up the game. We have five national team programs in place (more than any other Fijian sporting body) and great support from the East Asia Pacific regional office and the ICC. Sure there’s some challenges, but it’s been quite a while since cricket was this vibrant in Fiji so we’ll continue what we’re doing and hopefully knock over a few of the challenges as well.