Three o’ clock on a Tuesday morning in January and the streets of New York City are quiet and empty. Businesses are closed, their grates pulled down, rats scurry around looking for food in the chilly winter. It is below freezing outside. However, down in Little Italy, a small bar called Eight Mile Creek is lit up. People are still walking in and the sounds are rowdy. Somewhere inside a man yells, “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!” a common Australian sporting chant. Tonight, it is being yelled for the Australian cricket team as they take on India on the first day out of five that they will play.

New York City cricket fans come out from all around the city and can be found in the bars at strange hours of the night watching matches being played in sunnier parts of the world. They are a devoted group. For the most part, they have to work hard to find the cricket, as only a handful of places pay for the satellite to air it, usually the bars owned by cricketing nation expatriates.

Cricket, a game that originated in England, is one of the most popular sports in the world but it gets little to no attention in the United States. The major cricketing nations are India, Pakistan, Australia, England, Sri Lanka, the West Indies, South Africa, and New Zealand.

Americans have never understood cricket. One of the things that baffles Americans about cricket, those that have heard of the sport that is, is the idea that it is a game that lasts for five days and could still end in a tie. There are certain characteristics of the sport that don’t sit well with Americans and our need for over-the-top, “the bigger the better”-type theatrics in sport. For instance, in test cricket, all of the players on both teams wear all white uniforms. This tradition is said to suggest that there are no outside judgments once you walk out onto the field. No matter what your class, country, or color everyone is given a fair and equal shot.

The most common question Americans ask is, Isn’t it like baseball? There are similarities, like the fact that you swing a bat to hit a ball being thrown at you in order to score runs, Read more…

Administrator USA America, Australia, baseball, Blogs.CMDN.com, CCNY Cricket Club, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, England, Gokul Chakravarthy, India, New York, New Zealand, Oval, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the West Indies

Twenty20 cricket is the fastest growing new sport in the United States. And Indians, including some from Bangalore, are behind it?

Hold your breath. Cricket could be the next big thing in the United States. The gung-ho T20 format appears to have the caught the imagination of white, black and Hispanic youngsters across campuses and neighbourhoods in the US. And Indians, from places like Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai, apart of course from the influential diaspora, are proving to be the catalysts.

Venu Palaparthi, co-founder of DreamCricket.com, which runs a full-fledged cricket academy in the US, said: “Earlier, there used to be the notion in the US that cricket was played over many days, and produced little or no result. Every American allocates finite time for sports and leisure. These are still early days, but T20 is definitely making an impact in the US. Americans are willing to try new stuff.”

BANGALORE CONNECTION
There are a couple of Bangaloreans who are batting hard for cricket in the US. Venu Myneni is CEO of Radiant Info, the firm which organises and sponsors cricket tournaments in the US in a big way. Then there is Aravindan Pararajasingham, another co-founder of DreamCricket.com. There are a couple of Bangalore players too. Aditya Mishra, who represented Karnataka in a single Ranji season, is part of the New Jersey Daredevils squad, which participates in the American League, while 30-year-old Aditya Thyagarajan, a former Karnataka player, went on to don the Team USA national colours.

GRASSROOT PROGRAMME
The US already has 200 domestic leagues. In the state of New Jersey, there are five leagues, comprising some 200 teams, for hard ball cricket and another league for soft ball cricket. The growing popularity of the game can be gauged from the fact that 200,000 people Read more…

Administrator USA Afghanistan, Bangalore, Blogs.CMDN.com, Canada, Chennai, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Hyderabad, ICC, IPL, ireland, Kenya, Mumbai, Netherlands, New Jersey, New York, Scotland, Staten Island, T20, UAE, United States, USA, USACA

The inaugural season of the American Premier League, which was set to take place in Staten Island, New York, in October this year, has had to be postponed.

According to the league chairman, Jay Mir, a full and detailed proposal for the competition was sent to the USA Cricket Association six weeks ago as part of an application to gain official sanctioning, but no reply has been forthcoming.

Sir Richard Hadlee, the APL executive consultant, said: “We have done what we were asked to do by preparing and sending a proposal to have our event supported and sanctioned and as we have not had any official responses, time has run out for the October tournament. We are hopeful of continuing dialogue in the future.” Read more…

Administrator USA American Premier League, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Jay Mir, New York, Sir Richard Hadlee, Staten Island, USA Cricket Association

The Gateway Cricket Ground in Brooklyn is a spartan place — a grass oval tucked in by the Belt Parkway, in the shadows of the towers of Starrett City and beneath the flight path of Kennedy International Airport.

But on Tuesday morning it was crowded with players, some toting paddlelike bats, and filled with the sound of leather balls struck by wood.

The sport they were playing is as ancient as it is baffling to most Americans, yet the New York Police Department has chosen cricket as a way to foster relationships with newer immigrant communities.

The Police Department established a cricket competition for young men in the city last summer; the project was a success, and on Tuesday, play began for another season. Interest has expanded, with 10 teams and 170 players involved this year, compared with 6 teams last year. Read more…

Administrator CMDN.com Amin Kosseim, Belt Parkway, Blogs.CMDN.com, Brooklyn, Caribbean, Community Affairs Bureau, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Gateway Cricket Ground, Kennedy International Airport, KnightRiders, New York, NYPD, Raymond W. Kelly, South Asia, Starrett City