This month, Canada’s national cricket team will embark on a tournament in New Zealand with the hopes of qualifying for the 2015 Cricket World Cup. Played every four years, the World Cup is the biggest event on the international cricketing calendar, and one that Canada has competed in four times before.
The challenge for cricket in Canada used to be a lack of interest. But drive around the right parts of any major city in Canada on a weekend afternoon in the summer and you'll see a lack of interest is an issue that has pretty much been “bowled over” (a cricketing term for when a batsman is out).
In the last 10 years, the game of cricket has seen an explosive growth in Canada. There are more than 40, 000 cricketers in the country and the sport is now played at the varsity level in many high schools. This growth is due largely to the influx of immigrants coming into Canada from the Indian subcontinent, where it’s safe to say that cricket is more of a religion than a sport.
The problem now is that there isn’t enough room for people to play cricket. With the game in direct competition with summer sports that have been traditionally popular in Canada, like soccer, football and baseball, finding space to play is fast becoming an issue for cricketers in this part of the world.
While local teams bemoan the fact that all four cricket grounds in the city are often over-booked during the season, nowhere is this more of a problem than in Toronto. In an interview with CBC’s The National last summer, Adam Vaughan, a Toronto city councillor, said the city needs to take an inventory of its big parks and look at where more cricket pitches can be installed.
In the winter when the few grounds that are present are covered in snow and the bitterly cold weather takes over, cricket enthusiasts across the country head indoors where a reduced version of the game is played. Here in Ottawa, 15 teams battle it out in a winter league played every year at Carleton University’s Fieldhouse from January to April.
If Canada is to perform better on the international arena (they have been hot-and-cold in the last few years) cricket needs to be given the attention it deserves locally. A good start would be to make an effort to create more places for people to play cricket – lack of space should be the last excuse for people not to pursue the game.
It’s time municipal governments across the country work closely with local cricket administrations, which would be the Ottawa Valley Cricket Council in Ottawa, to see how best the game can be moved forward. If those in charge don’t act now, the current rise of cricket in this country will be threatened.
In its previous four appearances in the World Cup, Canada has never gone past the first round of the tournament. But a strong performance in New Zealand this month and a little bit of luck during the World Cup could see them sneak into the quarterfinals. It’s a long shot, but it would be a fitting reflection of the state that cricket finds itself in Canada today.