Set up in 2013 by then Thunder CEO Nick Cummins, who is now CEO of Cricket Victoria, the Thunder Nation Cup has been one of the most successful vehicles to engage South Asian players at community level in NSW.

“We played the final at the Sydney Showgrounds and won by one run. That’s definitely one of the most memorable games I’ve played in,” said Tanveer Sangha, who has come through the NSW and Australian pathway system and, like Jason Sangha, represented Australia’s Under-19s.

“I’d never experienced playing in a stadium, playing on turf, it was amazing,” he said. “I got to bat and bowl on turf and now I’m with the Thunder. I was a big Thunder supporter back there too. We beat Pakistan, the rivalry was definitely there. There were a lot of flags and a lot of people.”

Cummins is delighted that Tanveer Sangha has made the journey from the Thunder Nation Cup to the Sydney Thunder in the Big Bash, which earned him a touring place as a reserve for Australia’s Twenty20 squad, and has now made his first class debut.

“One of the priorities [with the Thunder Nation Cup] was to engage all the different nationalities of Western Sydney through the Sydney Thunder,” Cummins said.

“We were always aware that someone from Nepal or Afghanistan or India were never going to support the Australian cricket team. Their kids will, but their parents wouldn’t in the same way that English migrants were never going to support Australia, but their kids will.

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“But we did think we could get them to support the Sydney Thunder, so they were at least engaging in Australian cricket.

When we started it, we focused on the main migrant nationalities in western Sydney: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and then it grew to Nepal, Bhutan and Fiji.”

Cummins said the Melbourne Renegades had a similar program called the Champions League focusing on outer western Melbourne, which has been paused for two years because of COVID-19, and the Melbourne Stars were looking to do the same south of Melbourne.

Hockley said cricket had to find more and better ways of harnessing the passion of South Asian communities for cricket.

“When I went down to Beaman Park in Earlwood [in Sydney], there were eight teams from the Nepalese community playing every Sunday with hundreds of kids there, but it’s very much an expat competition,” Hockley said.

“The challenge for us is how do we ensure that all of these passionate expat communities can see a pathway through to representing Australia?

“It’s about going out and building relationships at every level but it’s also about representation on boards and administration at every level and across volunteer communities in our clubs.

“There is a question about how to make cricket more culturally diverse but there’s a bigger opportunity and a bigger question, what role can cricket play in making Australian society more socially cohesive?”