It’s probably a head scratcher for most Americans that cricket is often considered the second most popular sport in the world, after soccer. In some surveys, Baseball doesn’t even make the top 10.
Although this game isn’t all that well known in the United States, people here who play are hoping they can get more players involved. On a field in Wrentham, cricket players from all over the state gather early to prepare for their matches. They suit up, stretch, and get in some batting practice.
The easiest comparison to cricket is baseball, except it is so much different. There is a bowler, instead of a pitcher. The ball has to bounce once before it can be hit. Games can last for hours, even days, and scores can easily go into the hundreds.
Nitin Meweda admits he is completely into cricket. He has played since he was a boy in India. He says American co-workers were often confused about his favorite sport. When he would tell them he had spent a weekend playing cricket, they often responded, ‘What’s that?”.
Cricket was played in the United States back in colonial times, but had pretty much died out by the Civil War.
This game, however, has thrived in other parts of the world. International matches are among the most watched global sporting events.
“Cricket in India is like religion,” explained Ravi Uppalapati, an official with the Massachusetts State Cricket League. “It has three times the population of the United States and this one sport. Can you imagine, if in the states you only had one professional sport, all over the year? That would be crazy. It is crazy!”
In Massachusetts, most of the players are immigrants, representing far corners of the world. “Most of us are from India, but there are a lot of people from Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Australia, and England,” said Uppalapati.
As the state’s population has diversified, the league has grown. There are now several thousand players. “I think there were 12 teams in the cricket league in Massachusetts in 1997. There are more than 30 teams now, so things have picked up so much,” said Uppalapati.
For the sport to really grow in the United States, organizers believe it needs to follow the model of other sports that that used to be played almost exclusively overseas. League president Ravi Rao admits the sport is not mainstream, but hopes it can follow the same path as soccer. “If you look at it, all the schools have soccer. Soccer programs are where the kids are getting trained on soccer and the US is now giving more importance to soccer.” The MSCL is trying to create a new generation of players, sponsoring clinics and camps.
“You see lacrosse now; in the last 2-3 years no one was playing lacrosse. Kids are loving lacrosse. So it’s just a matter of how we introduce, where we introduce,” explained Uppalapati.
The bigger challenge might be educating parents on what they’re actually watching their kids play.
