Vikings’ batsman Iftekhar Yaqub protects the wicket behind him by hitting the ball during a cricket match between the Vikings and the N.J. Colts at John A. Phillips Park in Old Bridge on July 20. Cricket has become especially popular in central New Jersey. SCOTT FRIEDMAN That funny game with a bat and ball, wickets and players in white dress uniforms is beginning to take a foothold in the area.
That funny game is called cricket, and it may soon become more than a novelty.
“The way I look at it, cricket is building in the U.S.,” said Atul Huckoo, president of the Edison Cricket Club. “It’s still in the shadows; it hasn’t stepped out yet.” Cricket can be expected to step out of the shadows over the next decade, he said. It may not challenge the major professional sports, but it could attract a significant following.
Akram Kahn, president of the Middlesex Cricket Club and a native of Sri Lanka, has seen “huge growth” in the sport over the last three decades. In the 1980s, when leagues were just forming, there were no more than 16 clubs in the state. Now, there are more than 100 clubs playing in New Jersey.
Players from the N.J. Colts warm up before their match against the Vikings Cricket Club at John A. Phillips Park in Old Bridge on July 20. The sport of cricket is growing in New Jersey. PHOTOS BY SCOTT FRIEDMAN When he and a few friends got together 15 years ago to form the Middlesex club, they were just playing games on the weekend. The club has 70 members this year and competes in cricket leagues.
There are four major leagues in the state: the Cricket League of New Jersey, Millennium Cricket League, the New Jersey State Cricket & Umpire’s Association and the New Jersey Softball Cricket League, which uses a heavy tennis ball in place of the leather ball.
Bowler Amol Lotia is airborne as he gets ready to throw a pitch during the match. Johnson Park in Piscataway, Mercer County Park in West Windsor, Phillips Park in Old Bridge, Kennedy Park in Sayreville and the Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Edison are among the places where one will find cricket being played on weekends.
Kevin Jayawardena, who organizes the East Coast Cricket Festival held in South Brunswick each June, credited the large influx of people from the Caribbean and Indian subcontinent for the growth of the sport in the Middlesex County area. There are more than 40 teams in the county, with 14-15 players on each team.
Jayawardena, who puts cricket where soccer was 30 or 40 years in the U.S., noted that “the curiosity is there” among Americans.
“It’s picking up,” he said. “I see enthusiasm. It hasn’t gotten to the point of soccer because it hasn’t gotten the international exposure.”
He believes interest in the sport would build if the U.S. could field a team that qualified for the ICC Cricket World Cup.
Huckoo reported that cricket has 15 million viewers across the nation.
“That’s good for a start,” he said.
The game’s roots date back to 16th-century England. In countries that were part of the British Empire, cricket is literally a national sport.
Khan, who grew up in Pakistan and whose parents are Indian, knows firsthand the importance of cricket in those countries.
“Like any kid, I started playing at a young age,” he recalled. “We played in the streets and in local clubs.
“We don’t look at [cricket] as a pastime; it is part of our heritage,” he said. “Parents put time and effort in so that their kids get to play cricket.”
In that way, the sport passes from one generation to another.
Mashhood Siddiqui said cricket is the “people’s game” in his native country of Pakistan.
Cricket cannot mean more to anyone than it does to Huckoo.
“It’s a religion with me,” said the native of India, now a U.S. citizen.
Huckoo said he even bought his Edison home because of the street address: Cricket Circle.
Those trying to sell cricket to Americans often cite its similarities to baseball. Cricket can even be looked at as the father of baseball.
Like baseball, there is a batter, a pitcher — called a bowler in cricket — and fielders. The batter’s objective is to get a base hit; the bowler’s is to get the batter out, or dismissed, as they say in cricket. In both sports, they play innings and score runs.
Of course, there are major differences. The cricket field is circular and features a rectangular patch, known as the pitch, at its center. The pitch is 10 feet wide and 30 yards long. Wickets — comprising three 28-inch stumps with two bails on top — are set up 22 yards apart inside the pitch. The wickets are the target for the bowlers and the fielders. A batter, who is protecting the wicket, is dismissed if the bowler’s pitch gets by and hits the wicket, knocking off the bails or if fielders catch the hit in the air.
The bowler does a run-up before delivering his pitch, which hits the ground first before arriving at the batter.
If a batter hits a fly ball over the field boundary — a home run in baseball — it scores six runs. If the ball crosses the boundary line on the ground, it counts for four runs.
While there are three outs per inning in baseball, a cricket inning ends when 10 batters are dismissed.
“The game is a combination of baseball and basketball,” Khan said. “It’s a game of anticipation, like baseball and basketball on the run.”
Because of the dress uniforms, cricket may look like a sedentary sport, but that is deceiving.
“It’s a great workout — there’s lots of running,” said Siddiqui, who is a member of the East Brunswick Cricket Club.
Siddiqui pointed out that a variety of skills are involved in the game, and Huckoo noted that all 11 players on the field have to play all the positions.
Cricket may be considered a “gentleman’s sport,” but hitting the ball with a flat stick is not as easy as it looks. The bowler can whip a pitch to the batsman at 90-100 mph. And since the ball is bounced to the hitter, “a lot of things can go on with the ball,” Siddiqui said.
There are a variety of spins the ball can take, making it difficult for the batsman.
“It’s a tough game,” Huckoo said, noting that pitches have hit batters hard enough to break their ribs.
For those who think baseball is a slow game with little excitement, Siddiqui explained that 100 to 150 runs are scored in what’s known as a Twenty20 cricket game.
In addition to the physical workout of playing cricket, the sport “inculcates discipline,” Huckoo said. “It is a very strong aspect of the game.”
There are three different versions of cricket: the traditional, or test cricket, lasts five days; the one-day intermediate 50-over game (an over is a set of six pitched balls to a batter) that lasts seven to eight hours; and the Twenty20 version, which is more suitable to Americans, goes for three hours.
The cricket clubs are doing their best to see that the sport reaches the youth. The Edison club is promoting cricket through coaching camps for youngsters, thus exposing it to a new generation. Cricket academies, clinics and leagues are set up around the state for young players.
The sport is male-dominated, but the U.S. has a women’s team that competes internationally, and any exposure it receives could generate more interest among females.
If cricket catches on in the U.S., Kahn can see greater competition on the international stage.
“There’s a lot of potential in the United States,” Jayawardena said. “It’s going to take a little time.”