One of the world’s biggest sports that has largely been untapped in the United States is coming to Brooklyn — at least for a day.
The borough will play host to CricFest on Saturday at MatchPoint NYC in Gravesend, where an expected crowd of nearly 1,500 fans will come together for a celebration of all things cricket from 4-7 p.m.
The interactive event includes batting cages, a virtual reality cricket simulator, Indian street food vendors and two special guests flying in from India: cricket legend Anil Kumble and current star Harbhajan Singh.
“The event is quite a spectacle … really just a celebration of cricket,” said Ipsita Dasgupta, the president of Hotstar International, the company hosting the event and the exclusive live-streaming partner of Indian Premier League (IPL) games. “If you look at the community across the U.S., we started speaking to different cricket academies, associations, organizations. We realized there’s this huge unmet demand for events, activities, content and just a lot of excitement for people to get together.”
The IPL starts in April on Hotstar, which offers commentary for the games in six different languages. Saturday’s event will begin the unofficial countdown to the opening of the season.
The borough will play host to CricFest on Saturday at MatchPoint NYC in Gravesend, where an expected crowd of nearly 1,500 fans will come together for a celebration of all things cricket from 4-7 p.m.
The interactive event includes batting cages, a virtual reality cricket simulator, Indian street food vendors and two special guests flying in from India: cricket legend Anil Kumble and current star Harbhajan Singh.
“The event is quite a spectacle … really just a celebration of cricket,” said Ipsita Dasgupta, the president of Hotstar International, the company hosting the event and the exclusive live-streaming partner of Indian Premier League (IPL) games. “If you look at the community across the U.S., we started speaking to different cricket academies, associations, organizations. We realized there’s this huge unmet demand for events, activities, content and just a lot of excitement for people to get together.”
The IPL starts in April on Hotstar, which offers commentary for the games in six different languages. Saturday’s event will begin the unofficial countdown to the opening of the season.