Cricket might not be as popular in British Columbia as it is elsewhere in the world, but 17-year-old Arnav Sekhri says the game is catching on in Canada.
“A lot of people are picking it up these days and it’s a positive change,” said the young player from Surrey, B.C. — and his optimism about the sport’s prospects is only growing as the national men’s team gears up for its first ever T20 World Cup.
“It’s going to start [getting recognition] and people like us are going to get more opportunities,” said Sekhri, a medium-pace bowler and batsman who currently plays for Surrey’s Master Blaster club and has been competing in the British Columbia Mainland Cricket League (BCMLC) for the last four years.
Canada is one of 20 participating teams in the T20 tournament — the shorter format of the game — that’s taking place in cities across the U.S. and the Caribbean Islands this June.
The national men’s cricket team last took to the international stage at the 50-over World Cup in 2011.
Cricket Canada president Amjad Bajwa says qualification for the T20 was a much needed success for the national team.
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The Canadians had failed to qualify for the eight previous editions of the T20 World Cup and also lost its One Day International (ODI) status after a number of losses in the 2014 World Cup qualifier in New Zealand.
“[We] struggled after 2011 but in [the] last two to three years, [things] have gone up up again,” Bajwa told CBC News.
Canada regained its ODI status for the first time in almost a decade by finishing in the top four at last April’s World Cup Qualifier Playoff in Namibia. The national team then qualified for the T20 in October after defeating Bermuda to win the Men’s T20 World Cup Americas Region Final.
‘The game of immigrants’
Bajwa says he credits a rapid growth in international students and immigrants from South Asia and other cricket-loving regions of the world for the Canadian team’s recent successes.
“It’s still a game of immigrants because a lot of these students are coming,” he said.
One of the team’s batsmen is Aaron Johnson, who moved to B.C. from Jamaica in 2019.
Johnson says cricket is becoming more popular and competitive in the province. Five of the selected players for the World Cup squad are from B.C.
“I think the game has grown a lot from 2019 … we have so many cricketers in B.C.,” he told CBC News.
“Financially, as well, there’s a lot more sponsors coming on board.”
More grounds and support needed
More money is coming into the sport, with Cricket Canada receiving funding from the International Cricket Council.
In addition, Cricket Canada handed out full-time contracts to more than dozen players — allowing the cricketers to earn a monthly salary — after the national team regained ODI status.
But Bajwa says he’d like to see more support for the game from the local, provincial and the federal government.
“We don’t have many grounds dedicated to cricket. We use multi-sports grounds,” he said.
There are 41 cricketing grounds in B.C., according to a directory on bcmcl.ca, nine of them in Surrey and six in Vancouver.
In April, the City of Surrey announced it’s moving forward with a natural grass cricket pitch at Sullivan Heights Park as part of its five-year financial plan.
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BCMLC president Harjit Sandhu says he welcomes the city’s support, and that the BCMLC is now focusing on introducing cricket to the provincial school curriculum.
“Our aim is to go to more schools and introduce the game,” he said. “If you want to develop cricket here, we need to go to the grassroots.”
Canada will play its opening match in the T20 Men’s World Cup against the U.S. in Dallas on June 1.