A good article in today's NY Times about the inaugural American College Cricket championship. It's not recognized by the NCAA, and only five schools competed, but it's a start:
This sounds like it could slowly grow and become something, well, not big, but bigger than being watched by only three fans (so the article says).
Though cricket counts its fans by the billion worldwide, the sport does not register a pulse in the United States. Of the five teams in attendance at this experimental event last weekend — Montgomery, from Maryland; Boston University; Carnegie Mellon, from Pittsburgh; the University of South Florida and the University of Miami — most exist only as social clubs. None of them have club team status, and the sport is not officially recognized by the N.C.A.A.
“This is an opportunity for us to really show athletic directors at a Division I level that cricket matters, cricket is a big sport and cricket has a marketing capability in this country,” said Sumantro Das, an all-rounder and junior at Boston University, who learned to play as a child in India.
With only a few weeks’ notice, the five teams did what many college students do this time of year: they packed their sunscreen and headed to Florida. Nearly 60 players drove or flew at their own expense to the lush cricket pitches of Central Broward Regional Park. They played Twenty20, a version of cricket in which many stuffy traditions are left behind and matches are completed in about three hours instead of taking up to five days. The only custom-built cricket stadium in the United States stands in this park, but securing the 5,000-seat facility was far too rich a luxury for the tournament’s shoestring budget. Competing on the park’s manicured fields was already an upgrade over the converted soccer fields and tennis courts the players were used to.
“I wanted them to see the stadium to know what they are playing for,” said Lloyd Jodah, the founder and president of American College Cricket. “That is where we want to be next year.”
The idea for the college tournament came to him last year as he campaigned to have cricket included in the Olympics. Standing on Wall Street with a cricket bat in one hand and petitions in the other, Jodah, 50, an immigrant from Guyana who works selling health club memberships, met Kalpesh Patel, a Jamaican business student from the University of Miami.
Once Jodah heard how difficult it was for college cricketers to find regular games, he began toying with the idea of a nationwide organization for collegiate clubs and founded American College Cricket. He made a group on Facebook as a way to reach out to players.
“We always had the desire to play, but there was no real framework for us to get involved,” Patel said. “So this idea gave us the push to get involved with the most competitive form of the game.”
Jodah and Nino DiLoreto, 62, a former soccer player from Abruzzi, Italy, spent many evenings tracking down college cricket players, and the group swelled to more than 500 members.
“This is an opportunity for us to really show athletic directors at a Division I level that cricket matters, cricket is a big sport and cricket has a marketing capability in this country,” said Sumantro Das, an all-rounder and junior at Boston University, who learned to play as a child in India.
With only a few weeks’ notice, the five teams did what many college students do this time of year: they packed their sunscreen and headed to Florida. Nearly 60 players drove or flew at their own expense to the lush cricket pitches of Central Broward Regional Park. They played Twenty20, a version of cricket in which many stuffy traditions are left behind and matches are completed in about three hours instead of taking up to five days. The only custom-built cricket stadium in the United States stands in this park, but securing the 5,000-seat facility was far too rich a luxury for the tournament’s shoestring budget. Competing on the park’s manicured fields was already an upgrade over the converted soccer fields and tennis courts the players were used to.
“I wanted them to see the stadium to know what they are playing for,” said Lloyd Jodah, the founder and president of American College Cricket. “That is where we want to be next year.”
The idea for the college tournament came to him last year as he campaigned to have cricket included in the Olympics. Standing on Wall Street with a cricket bat in one hand and petitions in the other, Jodah, 50, an immigrant from Guyana who works selling health club memberships, met Kalpesh Patel, a Jamaican business student from the University of Miami.
Once Jodah heard how difficult it was for college cricketers to find regular games, he began toying with the idea of a nationwide organization for collegiate clubs and founded American College Cricket. He made a group on Facebook as a way to reach out to players.
“We always had the desire to play, but there was no real framework for us to get involved,” Patel said. “So this idea gave us the push to get involved with the most competitive form of the game.”
Jodah and Nino DiLoreto, 62, a former soccer player from Abruzzi, Italy, spent many evenings tracking down college cricket players, and the group swelled to more than 500 members.
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