The SMRT deputy director behind a 3,000-strong cricket league in Singapore for homesick migrant workers

At just 21 years old, Mr Shaji Philip led one of India’s most ambitious railway projects: The 756km-long Konkan Railway Project that began in 1991 and would cross three Indian states, connecting the coastal town of Konkan to the country's financial centre of Bombay, now known as Mumbai.

The project took six years to complete and stationed in Bombay, the civil engineer was 1,500km away from his hometown of Kerala – the distance between Singapore and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. During the times he felt homesick, he turned to a familiar source of comfort: Cricket. 

Now 55 years old and a deputy director with Singapore's public transport operator SMRT, he is the man behind a cricket league here that provides recreation and a community for migrant workers who are missing home. 

Recalling the memories of himself as a young working adult, he said that he was gathering interested colleagues to play the sport that helped alleviate his loneliness, but it was hard to keep up the practice and find players because of his worksite’s remote location from the city in Mumbai.

So he just had to make do with every opportunity that presented itself.

Mr Shaji, who plays the position of bowler during games, said: “As a passionate sportsman, you keep that flame inside you. Wherever, whenever, whatever facility, you will always play.”

The bowler’s role is to throw the ball at the batsman, aiming to hit the stumps behind him and dismiss the player or prevent the defence from scoring.

After completing the Konkan Railway Project, Mr Shaji moved to Singapore in 1997 to work on the construction of the MRT rail network's North East Line.

The same thing happened when it came to finding a social life away from the job.

At work, he became the “cricket guy”. Colleagues who wanted to play approached him and he formed a team within the Land Transport Authority, his employer then. 

In 2007, he founded the Sengkang Cricket League.

He earned the immediate support of Mr Charles Chong, then a Member of Parliament who was familiar with the sport from his time studying in Australia.

What started as eight teams in 2007 have become 104 today.  

In 2012, it was renamed the Singapore Social Cricket League that Mr Shaji now leads as president.

News of this league had spread through word of mouth, so migrant workers and white-collared workers formed teams to join.

Right now, it has more than 3,000 players from countries including Bangladesh, England and Sri Lanka. 

Two-thirds of the players in the league are migrant workers and Mr Shaji oversees the match schedules.

They play in Sengkang East, a stone’s throw away from Renjong LRT Station, at an open area smaller than a football field.

Rental fees for cricket facilities in clubs can cost S$100 to S$150 a person for half a day, but this field is available to any player who may not be able to keep up the cost of engaging in this recreational activity.

All a player needs is a rubber ball and a S$30 wooden bat to get started.

Mr Shaji said: “My motivation and mission is to give back to society, especially migrant workers who are toiling for Singapore six days a week. We’ll do whatever is needed to help them relax."

On a rainy Sunday in mid-January, Mr Shaji turned up for the interview with CNA TODAY wearing a bright yellow jersey with the number 13 – his “lucky number” – stamped at the back.

I met him at a pavilion within the condominium estate where he lives. He had become a permanent resident here in 2004 and received citizenship in 2018.

We were originally supposed to meet at the field in Sengkang East, but the morning’s games were called off due to the downpour.

The prevailing northeast monsoon has affected many games in the last two weeks, but Mr Shaji was not overly disappointed.

“I’d rather players be safe than play in the rain and get injured.”

For most of our two-hour chat, Mr Shaji was measured and calm like that. If I had led a project that transformed my country in my 20s, I guess bad weather spoiling plans and most other things in life would not faze me, too. 

As we settled in, he spoke of how his interest in cricket began when he was aged 13. It was 1983 and he watched on television India’s team winning their first Cricket World Cup. 

Soon, cricket clubs sprouted up everywhere and people were playing the sport regularly, he recalled. 

He himself split his time between helping his parents at their 0.4ha farm (about the size of 16 tennis courts), schooling and practising cricket with friends and his two younger brothers. 

“We couldn’t buy bats because we had no money, so we asked our carpenter friends to please make bats for us,” Mr Shaji recounted.

With the Singapore Social Cricket League, what was lacking were not bats.

In the initial period, Mr Shaji was frustrated with the lack of structure in organising different teams to play at different times, as well as the lack of space. They had to constantly change fields due to construction work on the playing grounds as new developments took place. 

The league moved to its home ground in Sengkang East in 2013 with the help of the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth.

To accommodate 104 teams, four teams play for two hours at a time across two neighbouring pitches. 

Each team’s weekly games dropped to fortnightly after the field’s third pitch was used as the site for a makeshift workers’ dormitory. 

To mitigate this, players were deployed to take up the role of umpires on the weeks when their teams do not play. 

To give players more opportunities to play, Mr Shaji is also working with the Ministry of Manpower to source for alternative open spaces for games.

Separately, to keep the barrier of entry low, the league uses rubber balls instead of standard leather balls. Players need protection gear when using leather balls, whereas no protection gear is needed with rubber balls.

Since he lives a short drive from the field, Mr Shaji spends his weekends mingling with the players. He can converse in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and speaks a little Marathi.

“Working in Singapore can be lonely. When I speak to the migrant workers in their language, they're very happy. Wouldn’t you be happy if you heard your mother tongue in a foreign country?” 

Mr Shaji’s passion for cricket is abundantly clear to 36-year-old product manager Subbiah Arunnagappan, who has been working in Singapore since 2013 and is captain of the Sharks, a team within the league.

“It takes a lot of time and effort to manage just one team, but doing it for a whole community where there are more than 100 teams and thousands of people overall, that is mind-boggling,” Mr Subbiah said.

"Every single weekend, Mr Shaji is there at the field. He returns in the evening to check for litter on the ground. Stumps planted on the grounds for the games are taken down so that everything is in order again."

Mr Subbiah added: “It’s a huge amount of work and he's doing this without any expectation of financial benefits.” 

HELPING HANDS

A year after the Singapore Social Cricket League was established and a player was diagnosed with cancer, Mr Shaji rallied the teams and pooled S$7,000 in donations for the man's medical fees.

He said: “The value of this group is that we are 3,000 strong. If I donate S$100, but some can give just S$10 or cannot donate at all, it's okay. We just put a simple message, which is that you help your brother whatever way you can.”

The league has gone on to raise S$10,000 to S$15,000 for cases where players or their family members were critically ill.

Mr Shaji’s proudest moment as the league's president was when it clinched a Guinness World Record last September.

Before the record attempt, the league already held two records under the Singapore Book of Records for being the largest (102 teams) and playing the longest cricket tournament (753 matches across 102 teams spanning six months).

It then started eyeing the Guinness Book of Records, to be the world record holder for the largest cricket tournament played on a single venue.

Two months and much paperwork later, they got the title – with 283 matches played by 2,200 players across 10 weeks at the Sengkang East pitch.

A HEALTH SCARE

Apart from his commitment to the cricket league, Mr Shaji, who is a Malayalee, had founded the Kerala Art Lovers Association in 2011, a non-profit organisation promoting the community's arts and sports.

He is also a grassroots leader with Anchorvale Community Club, where his roles include helping to upkeep estates during cultural celebrations and interacting with residents during house visits.

Adding to his already stacked responsibilities, he leads a 100-strong club of alumni from his college in Kerala who work in Singapore.

“I want to be a simple person. I want to be known as a man for the community,” he said.

Why take on so many commitments, I asked, thinking of how exhausted I would be if it were me.

That was when he disclosed that at 39 years old, he was a cancer patient himself. Back in 2009, he was diagnosed with lymphoma and it was stage two or three of the blood cancer.

“I was not shocked when I received my diagnosis. Millions of people are affected by cancer and I was one among them. I just took it as a challenge.”

The disease went into remission after six months of treatment and a surgery to remove his tonsils.

The health scare led to him dedicating his time to communities closest to his heart.

“Whenever anyone is facing challenges in life or critical illness, I speak to them as someone who had had first-hand experience."

As I pondered doing charity work more regularly as a young, agile person with spare time, I asked Mr Shaji how he balances work, volunteer activities and so much more.

He credited his teams across the various organisations for keeping things going smoothly.

Above all, he thanked his wife, who has been steering a steady ship at home so that he could afford time for his engagements.

His wife works in the pharmaceutical industry and the couple have two sons aged 23 and 19.

Mr Shaji said: “At the end of the day, we don't take anything back when we leave this world. People only remember you for the good things you do.” 

Editor's note: A previous version of the article stated that Mr Shaji is a grassroots leader at Hougang Community Club. It should be Anchorvale Community Club. We are sorry for the error.