Batsman Park, Brampton, is the scene for Saturday’s (September 21, 2013) Brampton-Etobicoke and District Elite Division semi-finals. The City of Brampton officially opened Batsman Park earlier this year on a site previous known as Springdale Central Community Park. The park is located at 475 Father Tobin Road in the northern part os Brampton.
The Brampton-Etobicoke & District Cricket League’s website states all Saturday’s (Sept 21) scheduled playoff games have been re-scheduled for Sunday September 22, 2013
In these Elite semi-finals, Challengers are due to play Punjab CC Canada on the South pitch while Golden Tiger are scheduled against India Sports on the North pitch. I had aimed at seeing some play at Batsman Park a couple or so weeks back, but never quite made it. I have yet to see the ground under the previous name or as renamed to pay tribute to cricket’s batsman.
Dixie-Sandalwood Park hosts the league’s two Premier Division semi-finals on Saturday with Cricketers United playing Brampton XI and Cambridge taking on Mississauga Wolves. Both grounds, when used for cricket, feature an artificial cricket pitch in between two soccer pitches. Perhaps, some day, someone might try and arrange to obtain funding so these grounds are a bit flatter, more like the indoor soccer grounds at the overall complex. But, for now, the odd undulation exists for these grounds in both soccer and cricket configurations.
Recently, I visited Cassie Campbell Park to see some of the games in the Pan-American Field Hockey championships. A new artificial surface field hockey ground has been created which is flat to allow quality play at the international level. The state of the field hockey ground provides a marked contrast to Cassie Campbell Park’s two soccer grounds, which have some rather worn out grass and have an artificial cricket pitch jammed between them to allow cricket to be played. However, by local standards in Brampton, the ground when used for cricket is relatively flat. The Cricket Club of Ontario is due to play Gujarat B on Saturday in a Brampton-Etobicoke Division 3 semi-final.
The other Division 3 semi-final is at Creditview Park, which was somewhat dry, not quite so flat, and had what seems the standard combination of an artificial cricket pitch in between two soccer pitches when hosting an Indo-Canadian Chamber of Commerce cricket tournament a few years back. Creditview Park has two cricket grounds based on the pitch in between two soccer grounds model. GT Sports Club B and Jhanvi are due to play at Creditview.
Seeing the Cassie Campbell cricket pitch during the Pan-American Field Hockey tournament made me wonder if it was flatter than the Camden Park ground in Brampton. Camden Park hosts a second division semi-final between BSCC B and Brampton Trinity A on Saturday, but a quick recent look at the ground made me realize it was not so flat. Although the ground dips into the cricket pitch at Camden Park rather than the cricket pitch being on a mound above the outfield. A water pipe still sticks up out of the ground around the square leg postion for a right handed batsman on one side of the ground. The water pipe seemed bigger than I recalled from a previous trip to the ground. (It is probably between four and five feet tall.) As this is a dedicated cricket ground, some might have hoped a change to replace the water pipe with a water outlet that is accessible from under a cover to allow watering of the grass might have been made.
Teramoto Park is a newer cricket ground in Brampton, as far as I am aware. It was scheduled to host nine elite division matches in the Brampton-Etobicoke & District League this season, and is due to host a Division Four semi-final between Springdale B and the Toronto Super Kings on Saturday. This was an interesting ground to see for the first time recently, even by local standards.
It has to be admitted that some international grounds have a slight camber to allow rain to run off t the boundaries during a heavy storm. But the cricket ground at Teramoto Park seemed to be shaped a touch like a dome. At one point, while watching a few overs, a flashing blade sent the ball past the slip fielder….and totally out of sight down some dip when watching from a long-off position on a mound beyond the boundary. (The boundary being in a valley between the playing mound and the watching mound.) But there was a nice structure with some pillars and a roof under which the scorers were based. Perhaps someone might suggest the flat floor that forms the base for this structure is a potential pattern for how a cricket field is meant to be designed?
But that’s the way things are in some parts of the Greater Toronto Area for cricket. Still, the show must go on, and cricket is due to be played today, Saturday, although some of the projected rainfall has taken place in my part of Etobicoke overnight. Perhaps sunny skies and dry conditions will prevail at the local GTA cricket grounds this weekend for the playoffs in a variety of local cricket leagues. Best wishes to all those playing and officiating in the games in the various leagues.
　
Eddie Norfolk