The former British colony better known for its commercial significance in the global economy will walk on to a cricket field today with eight Pakistanis, two Indians, one Chinese, one Nepalese, two British and one Australian to face Bangladesh.

Although Hong Kong has a rich cricket history that goes back 150 years, still in the scheme of things the game is less popular among its inhabitants.

"While others make money by playing cricket, we play it for fun. It was not long ago we had to dig into our pockets to play the game. Only recently we are getting some pocket money," said Hong Kong captain Rahul Sharma, who migrated from India about 11 years ago.

MONEY NO PROBLEM
The Asia Cup returns to the international cricket calendar with a much bigger pot for the winners than it was four years ago in Dhaka.

The championship offer 87,000 dollars for the winners, which is more than double the total prize money given in the previous edition. The total prize money for the eighth version is 1,40,000 dollars. Money is no problem when you have a galaxy of stars shining on any sub-continent soil, where the game is an advertiser's dream.

NO RAIN THREAT!
Good news for fans the rain gods will make fleeting appearances during the two-week cricket carnival in Sri Lanka.

Weathermen said that there are chances of only scattered showers.

"The monsoon has weakened and there is likely to be some scattered rain during the Asia Cup," said the director general of Sri Lankan met office Dharmaratna yesterday.

"There is no chance of a depression or heavy rain and we hope to have uninterrupted cricket," he added.

Even though it is the peak of rainy season in Bangladesh and India, the southwest part of Sri Lanka will be pretty dry in July and August.

Besides, the history of the Asia Cup shows that rain has had little bearing on the previous seven editions. The only match abandoned due to rain was in 1997 when India played Pakistan.

The last time Sri Lanka hosted a showcase event, which was the ICC Champions Trophy in 2002, the home team had to share the title with India after two consecutive washouts.

HOWZZAT
There will be only 84 cricketers participating in the Asia Cup. That's seems all right. But if you compare that to the journalists who have arrived to cover the regional tournament then one might be in for a surprise. Just imagine for the next two weeks, Colombo has received 83 foreign journalists in addition to 109 locals and India has the highest number of representatives with 46.