The multicultural atmosphere of Toronto has finally brought cricket to the university stage. On Saturday Jan. 17th, the Muslim Students Association (MSA) will hold an inter-university cricket match at Unity Cricket and Sports complex in Mississauga.
For those who are still in the dark, cricket is a ball game played between two teams of eleven players. It is played on a large grass oval with a central “pitch.” At each end of this pitch are three pieces of wood placed vertically in the ground called the wicket.
The game itself is similar to baseball. The wickets act like a back-catcher and the batters job is to protect these wickets with a bat whilst the bowling side try to hit this target with a ball-again similar to a baseball-or else the batter is out.
Although baseball has traditionally been Canada’s stick and ball game, cricket is finally making a stand in this country. It is estimated that there are 12,000 players within the Canadian Cricket Association, playing in 400 teams on 145 grounds. When the MSA first put on a cricket tournament in October, they had a mere 30 people. Now, just a few months later, the association has grown to 100.
“I personally think cricket has always been popular here, especially amongst Canadian immigrants of Pakistani and Indian origin,” said Ahmed Badruddin, second-year U of T student and president of the MSA Cricket Board. “There, instead of playing hockey in the streets, kids play cricket.”
Many cricket enthusiasts in Canada believe that the sport reached their shores during the mid 1700’s with British soldiers following the battle at the Plains of Abraham near Quebec City. But it was schoolmaster George A Barber, considered to be the father of Canadian cricket, who spread the sport throughout Toronto during the early 19th century.
In 1892, the Canadian Cricket Association was formed. However, the sport’s popularity was on the wane as baseball’s grew. In the 70s, cricket’s popularity began to grow again when Canada played in the World Cup. Then in 2001, Canada played host to the International Cricket Council Trophy tournament. This past year has seen the Canadian team score their biggest victory yet. The team finished third out of 22 countries, to qualify for the 2003 World Cup, where they beat Bangladesh.
The popularity has certainly grown because of the increase of immigration from South Asian countries. Badruddin, originally from Pakistan, recalls that “last year we would still play cricket at campus, no student club or anything involved, just between friends, during March/April when the weather was nice. But I didn’t like the way things were. So I, along with the MSA Cricket Board executives, have been working really hard to organize cricket and raise awareness of the sport in the campus.”
This weekend eight teams will be throwing goggles (curve balls) and hitting sixes (homeruns). There will be four teams from the St. George campus, and one team each from UTSC, UTM, York and Ryerson.
Although it is hard to say which players to look out for, “the smartest team with the best team work will win,” according to Badruddin. “Indoor cricket really requires great collaboration between the players,” he adds. This is a landmark event-cricket has now entered the university arena and it wants respect as a sport, similar to baseball and hockey.
