PHOENIX — It’s been a long time coming for Valley cricket players, but they finally got their first public fields dedicated to the sport.
The recent ribbon-cutting event for the pitches at Turtle Rock and Grovers Basin included Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego who said the fields came after passionate pitches from local players.
“Our South Asian community has been advocating and telling us why we need to make these investments," Mayor Gallego said.
The process to get the fields took a little over a year, but Vikram Sivakumar says he and other cricket players have been waiting for a field like this for over a decade.
“We’ve been playing on make-do cricket fields like a baseball field or a soccer field," Sivakumar said. "We never had a dedicated facility for cricket from the city and we got it and this is amazing.”
He hopes having this field will allow him to teach more people about cricket.
In the sport, wickets stand at both ends. There's a bowler and a batter, much like in baseball with a batter and a pitcher.
Players also score runs, but they do so by running between the wickets. To get a batter out, the bowler must hit the wickets with a pitch and knock off the bails.
For more on how to play, click here.
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The players say the new pitches are more than just a good place to play.
“In India, cricket, I would say, is considered a religion," Raghav Sivakumar said.
They say it's an example of a city embracing its culture and recognizing the potential of this growing sport.
“The players are really excited to play on the new surfaces, and we need more and more to come," Sivakumar said.
If you go:
- Turtle Rock Basin park (17414 N. 12th St., Phoenix)
- Grovers Basin park (17447 N. 20th St., Phoenix)
