New York City – The Public School Athletic League Cricket (PSAL) playoffs kicked off on Tuesday with some student-athletes battling it out for the championship title.
New York City is the first college cricket league in the country, and has since doubled its 14 teams to 30 across the city, with 500 student-athletes like Jayden playing cricket.
“I grew up around the game, so I was always playing it and just fell in love with it,” Jaden said.
As the sport makes its way into the mainstream, John Adams High School's varsity team is thriving in the playoffs, which began Tuesday.
“We have some good basemen and ballplayers on our team so we're excited and looking forward to winning this game,” said Ralphie, a fourth-grader.
Head cricket coach Alex Navarrete is hopeful that the match against Franklin K. Lane High School will lead to another cricket championship for the school.
“We've been to 10 finals in 17 years and are looking forward to winning our sixth,” Navarrete said. Fox 5.
Navarrete said he doesn't get much credit as a head coach.
“I'm lucky because they have the foundation. We get a lot of kids from the West Indies, Bangladesh and Pakistan at our school. They come to your school already with the knowledge,” he added.
A player like Jaden spends most of his weekends playing with his teammates and considers himself fortunate to be in a school district that is big on sports.
“Some games are good, some games are bad, but it's always fun because you're playing to win,” Jaden said.
“We're on par with baseball, football and basketball. We treat them as equals in the PSAL,” New York City Cricket Commissioner Bassett Thompson said.
Tuesday's game at Baisley Pond Park is one of eight playoff matches starting in the division, and it's safe to assume many of the players will be watching the Cricket World Cup, which starts next week, in the hope that one day they may take part.
What is the T20 World Cup?
The T20 World Cup is International Cricket Tournament In America, the centuries-old British sport has been thriving in corners of the New York metropolitan area for years, fueled by waves of immigrants from South Asia and the Caribbean. Every spring, recreational leagues come to life in parks across the country, from the Bronx and Queens to Long Island and New Jersey, hosting weekend matches.
U.S. cricket organizers hope the tournament, which begins in June, will take cricket's popularity to the next level and provide the kind of enduring excitement across generations and cultures that soccer enjoyed when the U.S. first hosted the FIFA World Cup in 1994. On Wednesday, honorary T20 World Cup ambassador and retired Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt toured the nearly-completed Eisenhower Stadium with members of the U.S. cricket team and former New York soccer and basketball greats.
Cricket History and Facts
Cricket is the second most-watched sport in the world after soccer — Indian star Virat Kohli has 268 million followers on Instagram — but only a little more than 200,000 people play cricket in more than 400 local leagues in the United States, according to the United States Cricket Association, which oversees the men's national team.
Major League Cricket launched in the United States last year with six professional T20 teams, including a New York franchise that has so far played some matches at Dallas-area stadiums that will also host World Cup matches.
Cricket has a long history in the United States, especially in New York.
Cricket was played by American troops during the Revolutionary War, and the first international match was played in 1844 between the St. George Cricket Club in Manhattan and Canada, according to Philadelphia-area cricket historian Stephen Holroyd.
As late as 1855, New York newspapers were devoting more coverage to cricket than to baseball, but cricket remained a stubbornly exclusive sport, and English-only cricket clubs hindered baseball's growth just as it was starting to gain popularity, he said.
By the end of World War I, cricket had all but disappeared, but it was revived about half a century later with the help of immigrants from India and other former British colonies.
“It's a big part of what makes us stand out,” said Anubhav Chopra, one of the co-founders of the Long Island Premier League, a nearly 15-year-old men's league that plays in a separate local park. Over 700,000 Indian Americans In the New York City area, it is by far the largest community in the country.
The Babylon resident has never attended a professional cricket match, but he has tried to share his love of the game he played growing up in New Delhi with his three American children, including his 9-year-old son, who is taking cricket lessons.
Chopra has bought tickets to all nine games at Eisenhower and plans to take his wife, children and grandparents to the Sri Lanka vs South Africa match on June 3.
“For me, cricket is life,” he said. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
The dense latticework of metal rods and wooden planks that make up Eisenhower's modular stadium will be demolished as soon as the cup competition is over, but the cricket field will remain intact except for a central rectangular surface called the pitch.
Nassau County Mayor Bruce Blakeman said what's left will provide a “world-class” base for the local cricket team and potentially become home to a professional team in the future.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
