That\u2019s the only thing that came to mind for Ammar Sikandar, director of the Barrie Cricket League, as he watched a match on the league\u2019s new pitch Sunday afternoon.
\n\u201cWe have been waiting and waiting for a place to play,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is great.\u201d
\nThe league celebrated its new home at Maitland Park, off of Johnson Street, last weekend with a match.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a community thing,\u201d Sikandar said. \u201cIt\u2019s always good to have an extra sport on the books. It\u2019s gives people more options.\u201d
\n
\nSikandar said you don\u2019t need to know anything about the sport to enjoy it.
\n\u201cEach team has 11 players. Registration is still open for anyone who wants to come out,\u201d Sikandar said. \u201cWhen we started there were a lot of players who didn\u2019t know much about the sport. We learn as we go.\u201d
\nThe new location, a city baseball diamond, has been transformed into a pitch thanks to a donation from Atul Ahuja, the former CEO of Cricket Canada.
\n\u201cHe has a lot to do with cricket in Toronto, so when he heard about us, he donated the pitch,\u201d Sikandar said. \u201cThere has been a lot of support from community businesses. We are still looking for sponsors though.\u201d
\nMark Littlewood brought his son Ethan to check out the action.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve seen cricket before, I played as a kid growing up in England, but this is great,\u201d he said. \u201cI saw a tweet about it and thought I\u2019d come check it out. It\u2019s been a fast paced game. There have been a lot of great plays.\u201d
\nOther dignitaries on hand for the inaugural match included local politicians, Ahuja and Bollywood music composer Loy Mendonsa.
\nThe Barrie Cricket League, which has six teams, will run two games every Saturday, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
That\u2019s the only thing that came to mind for Ammar Sikandar, director of the Barrie Cricket League, as he watched a match on the league\u2019s new pitch Sunday afternoon. \u201cWe have been waiting and waiting for a place to play,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is great.\u201d The league celebrated its new home at Maitland Park, off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1652,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651\/revisions\/1652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}