Saturday, April 05, 2008

Cricket Arrives in New York City

Usually it is the desi crowd that plays cricket in small groups.
Universities like MIT and others have their own little cricket temas,
but this is a little larger than all that.

The New York Times reports that, "Cricket, which its fans say is the
world's second most popular sport, is played by millions of people
around the globe. But it is pursued seriously by probably fewer than
1,000 people in New York City, where the game is played in relative
obscurity, its matches confined to the corners of the city. On
Wednesday, the Department of Education inaugurated cricket as its
newest league sport, with about 600 high school students playing on 14
teams during a 12-game season. The first matches, held in Queens,
featured teams from John Adams, Richmond Hill, Aviation and Newcomers
High Schools. The Department of Education said New York is the only
public school system in the nation to offer competitive cricket.

Another excerpt from the New york Times article --
"Cricket is not a newcomer to the city. The New York Times once
covered local players as critically as the sports pages now write
about the Yankees or the Knicks. On May 6, 1900, The Times reported:

"The first regular cricket games of the season were played yesterday,
and notwithstanding that the weather was rather cold for cricket, and
that the grounds were not in the best condition, several enjoyable
games took place. At Prospect Park, the Manhattans had the Nelson
Lodge, Sons of St. George, as opponents, and gained an easy victory by
98 runs. Several of the Nelson men shaped up very well, but they
exhibited a lack of practice."

Cricket was carried across the world by the British Empire, but never
caught on in the United States, where it is most popular among
immigrants from nations like India, Pakistan and Jamaica that were
once ruled by Britain. Most of the city's adult and high school
players are immigrants from South Asia and the Caribbean, or their
children."

Read the full article at -
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/04/03/nyregion/03cricket.html&tntemail0=y

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