Papua New Guinea: How many Aminis?

Most of us are influenced - to a certain extent at least - by our parents, and they by their parents. So when all the members of your family sitting at your dinner table are national cricketers, it's only natural that you tend to take up the sport. That's precisely what happened to Colin and Charles Amini. Colin's the captain of the Papua New Guinea Under-19 side and Charles jnr, his younger brother, is also part of the squad. Their aunt, Cheryl, is the media manager of the Papua New Guinea team, and she talked me through several generations of cricketers from the Amini family.

Her grandfather, Amini (Colin and Charles jnr's great-grandfather), began playing cricket in the early 1900s. He used to form a team and travel by boat to Port Moresby, the capital city and main cricketing centre of Papua New Guinea, to challenge the city teams. And so it began.

Through Amini, his children took to cricket. His son Bryan (Cheryl's father and the grandfather of Colin and Charles jnr) had a chance to do his schooling in Toowoomba in Australia and was exposed to cricket there. Bryan went on to become the first local to captain the Papua New Guinea team at a time when cricket was played primarily by the English and Australian expats in the country. He led his country against the touring Fijians in 1975, and also against Clive Lloyd's West Indies.

Like his father had an influence on him, Bryan had an impact on his children. Everyone in the family played regardless of age or sex. Backyard cricket, even with makeshift equipment like bats carved out of wood and cardboard, was a popular pastime when the family got together.

After Bryan stopped playing, he took up cricket administration in Port Moresby. He also worked in foreign affairs and he was Papua New Guinea's high commissioner to New Zealand. It was there that his son Charles (Colin and Charles jnr's father) played on turf pitches for the first time.

Charles continued playing cricket when the family returned to Papua New Guinea and got selected for the national side. Charles played for Papua New Guinea for several years around the 1990s and got married to Kune, who, given the family she was marrying into, is the current captain of the Papua New Guinea women's team. The women in Papua New Guinea have been playing cricket for a while but started on the international circuit around 2006. Cheryl was part of the team that played the first match against Japan.

Their three sons have continued the legacy. Charles was posted in Melbourne for four years when his sons were young and that's where they were introduced to turf cricket. Chris Amini, the eldest of Charles' three sons, led the Papua New Guinea team in the U-19 World Cup in 2004 and his younger brother Colin is this year's captain.

So that's Amini, Bryan, Charles, Chris, Colin, Charles jnr, Kune and Cheryl, who assures me that there were two more cousins. That makes around ten. Now how many Chappells and Hadlees were there?