You can thank Winnipeg’s influx of immigrants for the sport of cricket becoming more popular in the River City.
“We’ve seen recently the migration of South Asian people from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, those are the majority of the people that are coming now,” said Garvin Budhoo, president of the Manitoba Cricket Association.
One of those players is Abrar Rhman, who plays on the association’s Under-19 team. He moved to Winnipeg form Bangladesh and said there is a lot more opportunity to develop as a player here.
“There was less people so I got to practice my craft, work on my game, and work with people at my level, not like in my country where people were better than me,” Rhman said.
“I wasn’t getting enough attention, and I wasn’t getting enough practice. It’s good for me here.”
Trevor Manoosingh is one of the top players in the province, having played on previous national teams. He said the skills he developed playing other sports have helped him as a cricket player.
“My agility being put into play with basketball, my jumping with basketball, volleyball, whatever it could be,” said Manoosingh, 24. “Something played a role in helping me get to where I got to, and it did come from other sports.”
“I think speed and agility are important. I think the natural ability to anticipate is big.”
Manoosingh is enouraging all Winnipeggers to give the game a try.
“Give it a chance,” he said.
“You don’t know much about it, you haven’t seen much of it, you don’t know the rules. I’ve had so many of my friends come out and be like ‘I don’t know what you’re doing but put a bat in my hands and we’ll see what happens.’ They enjoy it so much.”
The number of teams registered with the Manitoba Cricket Association has grown the last few years from 17 teams in 2016 to 28 teams in 2017, and there are now 31 teams this summer.
Budhoo said he hopes to attract future national and international tournaments to Assiniboine Park, where there are three fields.
“We need to bring a high level of cricket to Manitoba, that’s our objective. We want to get international cricket to come here.”
Budhoo added that the sport has been played in the province dating back to the 1870’s.
There are now seven cricket fields in Winnipeg.
Learn the rules
With two new cricket pitches built in Winnipeg over the weekend and the sport on the rise in the city, let’s take a look at some of the rules of the sport.
- A cricket game involves two teams of 11 players each.
- Like baseball, the object of the game is to score runs when batting and to induce outs when in the field.
- Two umpires are in charge of calling the game on the field.
- A traditional “test cricket” game lasts two innings. There is no limit to the length of each inning.
- Whether a team bats first or is in the field first is determined by a coin flip prior to the start of the game.
- The goal of the fielding team is to “bowl” the opposing 10 batters out. Once this is accomplished, the inning is over.
- One player is at each wicket at the same time. Both are running, only one person is hitting.
- A high-level cricket match can last up to three to five days, with at least six hours of cricket being played each day.
- In order to score runs, the batsman must run to the opposite end of the pitch. One run is scored each time.
- Batsmen can also hit boundaries, which scores between four and six runs.
- There are multiple ways a batsman can be called out: They can be bowled out, which is when the ball is bowled and hits the wickets behind the batsman. Like baseball, the batsman is also out when the ball is hit and caught in the air.
- The team with the most runs wins the game.
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