ANDREW BAULCOMB
\nCricket just might be the most popular sport you’ve never seen. Its modern roots date back to 16th-century Britain, but changing demographics are bringing the game of wickets and stumps a little closer to home.
\nHamilton’s first cricket festival is expected to take place in September, while Burlington announced earlier this week plans for its first cricket field, in Central Park. The game wasn’t always under the radar. At the time of Confederation in 1867, Prime Minister John A. Macdonald declared cricket Canada’s national sport.
\nToday, “there are roughly 40,000 players in Canada alone,” said Ranjit Saini, president of Cricket Canada, with many concentrated in the GTA. “Cricket is especially popular with the local Southeast Asian community,” said Rupert Albert, president of the Hamilton Cricket Club.
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\nEstablished in 1847, it is one of the city’s oldest amateur sports clubs. Players in the 100-member club range in age from 15-50. Many have ties to the West Indies, the Caribbean and Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n
“I’ve been playing my whole life, and for the Hamilton club since 1984,” said Albert, now 41.<\/p>\n
Cricket slowly filtered throughout the Commonwealth as England expanded its empire in the 1700s. Australia, New Zealand, India and Kenya embraced the sport as a national pastime, while Canada slowly developed its own teams, leagues and players.<\/p>\n
The first known reference to Canadian cricket involves a match on Ile-Sainte-Helene (now part of Montreal) in 1785. Historians note the game was likely introduced to Quebec by British soldiers, following the battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759.<\/p>\n
The first official match between Canada and the United States was in 1844, while Britain sent a club to tour Canada not long after, in 1859.<\/p>\n
Other games have garnered the national spotlight in the years since (hockey, anyone?), but century-old teams and leagues continue to operate all over the country.<\/p>\n
Hamilton’s first Festival\/Mela of Cricket, Fun and Food, was scheduled for today but has been postponed due to weather concerns. It will be rescheduled for September. A specific date has not been confirmed.<\/p>\n
“We want people to come out, have fun and get to know the game a little better,” said Zafar Pasha, one of the festival organizers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ANDREW BAULCOMB Cricket just might be the most popular sport you’ve never seen. Its modern roots date back to 16th-century Britain, but changing demographics are bringing the game of wickets and stumps a little closer to home. Hamilton’s first cricket festival is expected to take place in September, while Burlington announced earlier this week plans […]<\/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\/464"}],"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=464"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":465,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions\/465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}