{"id":1656,"date":"2011-07-04T05:38:04","date_gmt":"2011-07-04T09:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/?p=1656"},"modified":"2011-07-04T05:38:04","modified_gmt":"2011-07-04T09:08:04","slug":"cricket-legend-helps-pump-up-sport-in-victoria-times-colonist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/?p=1656","title":{"rendered":"Cricket legend helps pump up sport in Victoria (Times Colonist)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Clive Dheenshaw<br \/>\nNothing says Canada Day quite like cricket.<br \/>\nOK, so that might be pushing it. Canada is one of the few Commonwealth countries in which the game isn&#8217;t a national passion. But it does have a dedicated Island following as hundreds of adoring supporters turned out Friday at Beacon Hill Park for an RBC-sponsored appearance by former Pakistan captain and international bowling legend Wasim Akram.<br \/>\n&#8220;I&#8217;m amazed to see so much interest,&#8221; said Akram, who bowled one over for each of the two Victoria and District Association sides that played an exhibition game in his honour.<br \/>\n&#8220;The warmth of the reception I&#8217;ve received is incredible,&#8221; added the 45-year-old widowed father of two, who also made appearances in Vancouver and Toronto to promote the sport.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.timescolonist.com\/sports\/Cricket+legend+helps+pump+sport+Victoria\/5040176\/story.html#ixzz1R7rPEtlQ\">Read more: <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Clive Dheenshaw Nothing says Canada Day quite like cricket. OK, so that might be pushing it. Canada is one of the few Commonwealth countries in which the game isn&#8217;t a national passion. But it does have a dedicated Island following as hundreds of adoring supporters turned out Friday at Beacon Hill Park for an RBC-sponsored [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1656"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1656"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1657,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1656\/revisions\/1657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}