China's got a... national cricket team?

With the Asian Games coming up in November 2010 in Guangzhou, host China is of course looking to make the best showing that it can in every sport. To that end, China's senior national cricket team entered its first competition last week in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Playing at the Asian Cricket Council Trophy Challenge, an event that does not include such powerhouses as India and Pakistan, China showed it has a ways to go to become a competitive team. The team lost by wide margins to Iran, Thailand and Maldives before finally beating Myanmar in the seventh-place game by 118 runs (complete tournament results here).

The team is coached by Pakistani Rashid Khan, who, according to a report on the Asian Cricket Council's Web site, said after the Myanmar game: "in more than five years, [China and Myanmar] will be up to the level of ACC Trophy Elite," (i.e., one of the "best of the rest").

China's cricket team right now has both the support of the national sports administration, which hopes for a respectable showing at the next Asian Games, and by the International Cricket Council, which announced last July that it was investing $300 million in the global growth of the game, over seven years beginning in 2009.

Chinese cricket team image: Asian Cricket Council

For more China sports news, check out China Sports Today.