Plymouth opens city’s first cricket pitch, delighting fans as interest in sport grows

Sai Sahasra Rayadurgam stood still just long enough to explain the reasons she loves cricket: It’s fun, with just the perfect amount of competition. The outcome is always a mystery until the very end.

Other children zipped around the green where she stood, practicing their batting skills or chasing after balls.

“I’m really proud we finally got a cricket pitch in Plymouth,” the 11-year-old said last week at the opening for the city’s first public cricket pitch. “Almost every pitch is 10 to 20 minutes from my house.”

Communities across the Twin Cities metro region are welcoming new cricket facilities as the centuries-old sport experiences a resurgence in America, driven in some places by an influx of immigrants from cricket-loving countries.

Fields can now be found in Brooklyn Park, Maple Grove, Chaska and Eden Prairie, among other places. Private, indoor facilities have opened in Minnetonka and Burnsville, offering year-round options for players whose training might have otherwise been limited by Minnesota weather.

“Our mission is to really spread the mission of cricket throughout the Midwest,” said Viren Yadav, co-founder of CrossBat, which opened in Burnsville earlier this year.

Cricket fans often explain the sport to newcomers by comparing it to baseball: Two teams of 11 players gather on a pitch with a bat and a hard, leather ball, each trying to score more runs than the other.

Explaining all those variations, Sohoni said, could take days.

Cricket associations say the sport appears to have been created centuries ago in England and spread as the British Empire expanded, colonizing various parts of the world. Today, the sport enjoys large viewership in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and South Africa, among other places.

While there is evidence of cricket being played in Minnesota as early as the 1890s, it was overshadowed decades later by baseball, said Masaood Yunus, president of the Minnesota Cricket Association.

“We have seen a significant increase in interest not only in the cricket-playing diaspora, but also in the broader American community,” especially since U.S. players upset a powerhouse team from Pakistan in a World Cup match last year, Yunus said.

The city of Plymouth offered some cricket programming in its fieldhouse but didn’t have a dedicated facility for people who wanted to play the sport.

So they included the cricket pitch in plans for the Meadows Playfield — a $6 million complex along Peony Lane and Chankahda Trail that also has a hockey rink, two tennis courts and three pickleball courts.

“This field is the newfound obsession, and it shows,” Mayor Jeff Wosje said at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday evening celebrating the opening of the complex.

Moments after the ribbon was cut, children scattered across the field, breaking into groups to practice their skills — and show some off. Some had been driving long distances to play cricket. Some had been playing on fields designed for other sports.

Now, they had their own place to practice, and an excuse to rattle off all the reasons they love the sport.

Atharv Zalaki, 11, loves cricket because it provides some exercise but “you don’t need to move around a lot,” and players rely on their teammates more in cricket than they might in other sports.