Players on Capital United Cricket Club learned game on street, in refugee camps – Gord Holder reports
Nawadi and nearly 20 other Capital United Cricket Club teammates are conducting a regular Tuesday practice on a grass field on Lynda Lane, near The Ottawa Hospital’s General campus. The grass is longer than it should be for proper cricket grounds, nor is there a proper pavilion, but at least it’s not conflict-ravaged Afghanistan or a refugee camp somewhere else. “When we came to Canada, the league we’re playing in right now, we’re playing with an official cricket ball, which is a hard ball. But in Pakistan, because we didn’t have the money for the equipment and our families couldn’t afford it at that time, we played with a tennis ball,” says Mustafa Popalzai, Murtaza’s 26-year-old brother. “We used to cut cardboard to use for our (leg) paddings, and I never actually touched a regular hard ball until I came to Canada. … We used to break the chairs in our school and take the handles and make bats out of them.”
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