Cricket News: Qatar - How migrant workers are bringing cricket to the fore in Qatar

However, the focus of many fans as of now is still football action. But the same cannot be said about some of the migrant workers living in Qatar – whose efforts helped make the tournament possible. 

Most of these workers are focused on playing a sport familiar to many fans in the Indian subcontinent – cricket. 

It is because most of these workers are, in fact, from nations like India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, where the sport of cricket rules bigger than any other. 

They don't often get time to play, but when they can, the labourers will often organise games anywhere they can – whether on deserted patches of land or anything resembling a cricket ground. 

And it is why many of them have been photographed, interviewed and even spoken to casually by journalists and fans travelling to Qatar. 

"We are working throughout the week and we need to just get relaxed and meet our friends just for time pass and entertainment," one worker told the Associated Press when quizzed on their game. 

"From my father and my grandfather, they have been playing cricket since childhood," another worker said. 

"We are here for work, we are here for earning something for our family," he said, adding that being in Qatar means, "It's easy for us to be there, to see the game on the ground, not only the TV."

It is an interesting dichotomy – a bunch of people who helped make the FIFA World Cup possible by playing another sport. But it's also understandable. 

For one, many of these workers would need help to afford a ticket to the World Cup games. Even the cheaper tickets sell out so quickly that most workers don't get a hold of them too quickly. 

For the other, they only get one day off work weekly – Friday, when most games are organised. 

After all, their working days are spent 'working and sleeping' according to one of the migrant workers from Ghana. And so, on their day off, they like to tame time out and de-stress. 

It explains why, in an abandoned cricket stadium outside of Doha, several migrant workers sit and watch the football matches on the stadium's big screens. This is a fan zone away from the fan zones that have cropped up around the nation. 

The division between the labourers and ordinary people in Qatar is pretty stark. On the one hand, ordinary people in the nation have high earning capacities and have been regularly enjoying the matches in the stadium. 

Migrant workers are finding ways to enjoy the sport differently. But that, too, ties into the sport of cricket, showing that one's roots always remain deep in them – even away from home.