new york – The United States Long Island hosts first Cricket World Cup.
New York is in the midst of cricket fever. On Saturday, First World Cup cricket match begins in the USand First game in Long Island, New York Sri Lanka will face South Africa on Monday
The sport has thrived among immigrant communities for generations, and local leagues have hosted tournaments in neighborhood parks across New York City for decades.
Cricket as a family tradition
“My father was one of the first organisers of the Trinidad vs Guyana matches,” Sunil Maharaj said, “and I was always with him when he was playing, which is how I got interested in cricket.”
Sunil's father, Jimmy Maharaj, started the centuries-old sport in the 1970s in neighborhood parks around the family's hometown of Trinidad and New York.
“Cricket was my father's first love, my mother's second,” says Sunil Maharaj.
Sunil's father was a locally and internationally acclaimed player with a large local following, and even after cancer prevented him from playing, he continued to find joy in the game by watching his sons play.
“He used to enjoy cricket by watching our matches and sometimes he would give us little pieces of advice,” Maharaj said.
In 2006, the family founded a windball cricket team – a form of cricket that uses softballs instead of the traditional hardballs – and they've been playing weekly matches in Brooklyn and Queens ever since.
In one word, how would he describe cricket?
“It's exhilarating,” he said. “You never know which way the game is going to go.”
The Maharaj family is just one of many South Asian and Caribbean families proud to be able to watch the first-ever T20 World Cup matches being played in New York.
“I think he'll be amazed at how far the game has come and that it's finally coming out in the U.S.,” Maharaj said.
They hope the tournament at Eisenhower Park on Long Island will take the sport's popularity in the United States to the next level.
Basic Cricket Rules and Terminology
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game similar to baseball, played on a rectangular 22-yard pitch in the middle of the field. Cricket has a wicket (a set of three sticks) at each end that the batsman must defend during the game. Teams take turns batting and bowling, similar to pitching. The goal is to score the most runs.
“We have boundaries. Just like in baseball you have home runs, we have fours and sixes. If you hit the ball and it bounces before it hits the ropes, it's a four. If you hit it over the boundary line, it's a six,” Maharaj said.
