The worldwide cricket federation has guess on constructing a brief stadium in New York to host a small World Cup, an surprising occasion that may hopefully present a turning level for organizers and native gamers.
“We will have folks from everywhere in the world, kings, princes, dignitaries,” mentioned Michael D’Ambrosio, assistant director of inexperienced areas for Nassau County. “Many are jealous and envious.”
About ten kilometers from New York there’s a forest of steel pipes, with 34,000 seats on prime, a brief stadium that may host, in the beginning of June, 8 matches of the Cricket World Cup, within the type of T20, sport mode is tightened.
The construction is totally financed by the worldwide federation, the ICC, which fell again on this massive park on Lengthy Island after the failure of a challenge within the northwest of the Bronx.
In baseball nation, Nassau County officers did not hesitate lengthy to provide the inexperienced mild to this unprecedented journey.
“It is the second most essential sporting occasion on this planet” by way of viewers, remembers Michael D’Ambrosio.
The ICC has invested in the way forward for sports activities in america and particularly within the New York space, which is dwelling to tons of of 1000’s of individuals from the Commonwealth (particularly India, Bangladesh and Pakistan). .
The primary match of the event, which is able to pit India and Pakistan on this pop-up stadium, is already bought out and no ticket is bought for lower than a thousand {dollars}.
– “The Mecca of Cricket” –
However as soon as the construction is dismantled in July, native cricket will return to its unique state, a sporting state of affairs that has no particular place within the New York space, though it has about 10,000 common gamers.
“Cricket is rising, however infrastructure is a wrestle,” notes Ajith Shetty, president of two leagues, together with the Commonwealth Cricket League (CCL), the one most well-known within the metropolis.
Paradoxically, New York performs a crew in Main League Cricket, the skilled league launched final 12 months, and performs in a particular stadium…
“We’re exploring alternatives that will create a everlasting location near our followers,” a spokesman for MI New York, which manages the MLC champion, instructed AFP.
Within the meantime, we now have to do, and the CCL carries a mattress weighing greater than 200 kg from park to park that works as a “pitch”, the rectangle in the course of the sector.
“No different sport has to wrestle as a lot as cricket in New York,” says Ajith Shetty. “They make us undergo, as in the event that they need to discourage us.”
“New York was once the Mecca of cricket,” in america, says the entrepreneur of Indian origin, “however within the final 5 or 6 years it has gone away, as a result of different states have seem, (…) particularly Texas.”
With the assist of native entrepreneurs, some CCL groups pay as much as a number of thousand {dollars} a 12 months to gamers, however it’s not sufficient to spend the game full time.
Waqas Ashik, who performs for Lengthy Island United CC, sees the glass as half full.
“After we began, in 2008, we solely had one crew and typically it was troublesome for us to have sufficient gamers,” he remembers earlier than choosing up the bat. “In the present day, we now have three, with as an alternative, we exploded.”
Based on Ajith Shetty, the ICC desires to spend money on the usage of younger folks in america, particularly since cricket is taking part within the 2028 Olympic Video games in Los Angeles.
“I am involved with faculties,” he says. “Some are up for it.”
Along with the query for a stadium, “the problem now’s to combine younger folks”, mentioned Waqas, as a result of “the youngsters of immigrants don’t essentially take cricket like us”, coming from different locations, from Pakistan, is the one method we will proceed to develop.
2024-05-25 06:58:50
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