Bowled over: Canada falls back in love with cricket

Cricketers in Canada are taking desperate measures to play their booming sport in a country better known for ice hockey, baseball, basketball and American-style football.

At one time nearly forgotten, cricket has exploded in popularity once more, as waves of immigrants have moved to Canada and want to play the once national game.

"We get a lot of complaints," said Manitoba Cricket Association president Paramjit Shahi about young people playing cricket in Winnipeg Walmart parking lots, where brightly lit asphalt offers day-working enthusiasts a chance to play. "They're just neighborhood kids."

The city government of Regina, Saskatchewan, posts signs on tennis courts saying "cricket is not allowed on courts", because batsmen were damaging them, it told reporters. The small prairie city now has three dedicated cricket pitches.

From British Columbia on the Pacific coast and Newfoundland on the Atlantic, to Yellowknife in the Arctic, the popularity of cricket has exploded as immigration from South Asia, Africa and the Caribbean has ignited a demand for ovals, night lights, winter training facilities and new teams.

Manitoba, a prairie province of fewer than 1.5 million people, now hosts 72 teams, compared to fewer than 20 eight years ago, according to Shahi.

"We don't have enough grounds," said Shahi at a recent inter-provincial tournament being played on a windswept patch of prairie south of Winnipeg, with three new-roofed shelters opened by local politicians and cricket officials.

In Vancouver and Toronto, cricket has been flourishing outside the usual sporting infrastructure, but has also struggled to find adequate grounds and training facilities.

"The sport is thriving. Not too many people are aware," said Imdad Alli, a Guyana-born cricketer who arrived in Toronto as a 10-year-old immigrant in 1979 and has spent his life deeply involved in the sport.

'It's come back home'

Canada's founding Prime Minister John A. Macdonald declared cricket Canada's national sport in 1867, and, across the country, major corporations and government departments fielded teams.

The world's first international cricket match was between Canada and the United States in 1844 in New York City, more than two decades before Canada officially became a country. The then-British colony of Canada won the game.

"Wherever the British went, they took cricket," said Nishant Jeet Arora, a British Columbian organizer of the Canada Super 60 Cricket League tournament held in Vancouver this month.

In the early 20th century, interest in British-style sports like cricket and soccer faded, but a century later, enthusiasm for cricket is surging again, fueled by a growing legion of fans watching TV broadcasts of the Indian Premier League and other global Twenty20 tournaments.

Canada is not without success on the international stage either, qualifying for four 50-over World Cups, including the 2003 tournament in South Africa where John Davison made 111 against the West Indies, reaching his century off just 67 balls, which, at the time, was the quickest hundred in the tournament's history.

Arora wants Canada to take its place alongside the game's world powers like India, Pakistan, South Africa, Australia and England.

"It (cricket) has its roots in this country," said Arora. "Cricket has come back to its home in Canada."

Cricket in Canada faces unique challenges compared to temperate England, warm Australia and South Africa, and the tropical and sub-tropical conditions of most of South Asia.

Snow and sub-freezing temperatures blanket the country for nearly half the year, making yearlong outdoor cricket impossible outside of a tiny wedge of British Columbia.

Winter training challenge

International cricketer Jatinder "Sunny" Matharu, a Winnipegger who has recently represented Canada in Antigua, Oman, Namibia and Zimbabwe, said that winter training was a challenge.

"It's pretty hard," said Matharu, who travels a lot to play for Team Canada, which is based in Toronto. "We have six, sometimes seven months of winter. You need the whole year to train."

Small towns and cities across Canada now host cricket teams. Brandon, Manitoba, which has fewer than 60,000 people, has an all-girls team, as does the 110,000-person city of St John's in Newfoundland.

In the 21,000-population Arctic community of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, cricketers play in the city's fieldhouse in the long winter and on patches of available field when it gets warm enough to play outdoors.

Other sports teams are beginning to reach out to the growing multitude of cricket fans, and Major League Baseball's Toronto Blue Jays held a "Cricket Day at the Park" this year.

"New to cricket? This is a perfect chance to learn more about the sport while still enjoying the game you know and love," said the Blue Jays' promotion.

In Winnipeg, long-time enthusiasts are enjoying the sudden popularity of their game.

"It's nice to just pull up a chair and watch," said Alli, who plays on the over-50 international team.

Garvin Budhoo, a fellow Guyanese immigrant, plays on the over-60 Canadian team.

"All of a sudden we have all these teams," said Budhoo. "Now the kids want to play."

Reuters