Cricket finds a home in the bronx!

The ball came flying. The batter, in crisp game whites, slammed it into the ground, then bounded across a clay strip and back again, bat still in hand. His teammates cheered. And there was not a stray soccer ball or an invading rugby player in sight.

Cricket was finally getting some respect in the Bronx.

The borough of the Yankees has become a mecca for the British bat sport favored by many of New York City’s West Indian and South Asian immigrants and their children. On Sunday, more than 100 cricket players joined diplomats from countries including Jamaica and Britain to break in 10 new cricket fields in Van Cortlandt Park that city officials say make up the largest site in the United States for the sport.

“When you see fields like this, you want to play,” said Dolip Dhanpat, 40, a delivery driver who was waiting with his team to take a turn. “It’s a blessing.”

The new cricket complex, designed as part of a $13 million renovation of a wide, grassy expanse of Van Cortlandt Park once used as a parade ground, reflects the growing diversity of New Yorkers and their pastimes. About 10 percent of the city’ 8.2 million residents are of South Asian or West Indian descent, including a fast-expanding Bangladeshi population in the Bronx, according to an analysis of census data by Queens College.

With the new complex, the Bronx has a total of 18 dedicated cricket fields, more than any other borough, according to city officials. (Brooklyn is next with 16 fields, followed by Queens, with 13.)

“No other borough has promoted the game to the extent that the Bronx has,” said Lesly Lowe, an immigrant from Guyana who is president of the Commonwealth Cricket League, which is based in Van Cortlandt Park.

“It is the borough,” he added, “that started the ball rolling, as they say.”

Mr. Lowe’s league, which started in 1982, is the city’s largest, with 2,000 players on 100 teams. Twenty-one of those teams are new this year, including four that are all Pakistani and a Bangladeshi team that calls itself the Bronx Tigers. Another cricket league and several school teams also play in the park.

Yet while cricket has thrived in the Bronx, it has often been an afterthought to baseball or soccer. The old cricket fields in Van Cortlandt Park, if they could be called that, were too small for games and overlapped in places. The fields had to be shared with soccer, rugby and football teams, who, cricket players said, mucked up the grass and left holes everywhere. Soccer balls often came bouncing into cricket games.

By contrast, the new fields sitting side by side have been carefully measured to regulation size and declared off limits to other sports. There is a drainage system to minimize puddles, and a newly posted map to mark the fields, lest there be any confusion.

“It’s 100 percent better,” said Everald Wellington, 59, a food handler who has also played in Queens and Brooklyn. “I’m home, I’m right in my house. It’s very special to me.”

The cricket complex took three years to complete, one more than planned, city officials said, because the grass seed did not take and had to be replanted.

Milford Lewis, president of the New York Cricket League, which plays only in Van Cortlandt Park and suspended its games during that time, said some players had grown impatient and decamped to leagues in Brooklyn and New Jersey. But Mr. Lewis said that he was pleased with the results.

“It’s bigger, wider, greener and more luscious,” he said. “It’s a far cry from where it was before. I feel on top of the world.”

The fields have already attracted one new player. Mark Daly, 44, a paralegal, stopped by on Sunday afternoon with a handmade cricket bat after hearing that there was cricket-playing in the park.

“I haven’t played for years, but it’s in my blood,” he said as he watched 10 cricket games going on simultaneously.

“I think the sport is really going to take off in the Bronx.”
nytimes