Earlier this month, the U.S. national cricket team defeated Pakistan during a match at the Men’s T20 World Cup. It was a stunning upset and impressive victory for Team USA’s first outing at the World Cup cricket tournament, as the team continues to defy expectations by advancing to the quarterfinals.

The international tournament is also being played on U.S. soil for the first time, a reflection of the sport’s growing popularity here. There’s also now a U.S. major league of cricket with six professional teams, including the Seattle Orcas, kicking off their second season next month. As reported recently by Axios, the Pacific Northwest has been a hub for cricket enthusiasts, thanks to the efforts of amateur cricket leagues in Seattle and Portland that have been organizing games and tournaments among teams for nearly 30 years. Joining us to talk about cricket and its growth in our region is Srini Ramakrishna, the secretary and treasurer of the Portland Metro Open Cricket League, and Satish Naik, the secretary of the Northwest Cricket League and the coordinator of the Seattle region for USA Cricket.

Note: The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Cricket is having a moment in the U.S. Earlier this month, the U.S. national cricket team defeated Pakistan during a match at the men’s T20 World Cup. The stunning upset happened on American soil because a tournament is being held in the U.S. for the first time. Meanwhile, major league cricket launched last summer with six professional U.S. teams, including the Seattle Orcas. Their second season starts next month and as written recently in Axios, the Northwest is a kind of hub for cricket in the U.S. with tournaments for nearly 30 years. Satish Naik is the secretary of the Northwest Cricket League and the coordinator of the Seattle region for USA Cricket. Srini Ramakrishna is the secretary and treasurer of the Portland Metro Open Cricket League. They both join us now. It’s great to have both of you on the show.

Srini Ramakrishna: Thank you. Thank you for having us.

Satish Naik: Thank you, Dave. Thank you for having me.

Miller: Srini, first. What’s your earliest memory of cricket?

Ramakrishna: Five years, when I was five years old, I just saw the people playing. And then here I am still playing.

Miller: Assuming you had 40 years or something.

Ramakrishna: I’m 52.

Miller: 52, OK. What did cricket mean to you when you were a kid?

Ramakrishna: The only sport which we used to play and then, that’s how we grew up. There were sports which we used to invent right on the go to escape boredom. But this was an established sport and this right on the face.

Miller: Satish, so what about you? What did cricket mean to you growing up?

Naik: It’s the same thing. I grew up in Bangalore and cricket was the major sport. It’s like everybody does cricket in school and outside. I was lucky that I grew up and played cricket with kids who eventually went and represented India, and also captained India. So I have great memories and friends. Cricket has been my growing like throughout my life.

Miller: Srini, when you arrived in the U.S., you came about 20 years ago or so?

Ramakrishna: Yeah, close to 20 years.

Miller: And you lived in New Jersey for a couple of years. How did you find a place to play?

Ramakrishna: Well, New Jersey was a different ball game because it’s the influence of the Caribbean. Right now, the tournament is also going on between the U.S. and the Caribbean Soil. So the influence of Caribbeans are very much when compared to the western hemisphere.

Miller:  Another commonwealth country where the legacy of colonialism lingers in this sport.

Ramakrishna: True. And, yeah, that’s how I came to know. And then, I joined a team over there and then eventually the job brought me back to Oregon. After that, I didn’t look back and I started playing here.

Miller: Where do you play here?

Ramakrishna: We play in all five cities. We play in Gresham, we play in Tigard, we play in Beaverton, Banks and Salem.

Miller: If a lot of the players in New Jersey came from the Caribbean, what about here? Where do the players that you most often play with in the Northwest come from?

Ramakrishna: Out here, it’s mostly dominated by the Indian community. And then we have a beautiful Asian mix over here like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan. Now, we have a team from Nepal as well. So it’s kind of, as Satish was pointing out, it is a great way to meet people of the same common passion, which is cricket, and then we are here.

Miller: Satish, I understand that you helped select three of the players who are now on the U.S. national team. Can you put the U.S. team’s win over Pakistan earlier this month in perspective?

Naik: Yeah. So let me take you a little bit of background around COVID time, right?

Like when minor league, major league planning was happening, a bunch of cricketers moved to the USA to find their cricketing careers. So a couple of players I coached, I worked with them in academy and these players require like three years of residency before making it to USA selection. So they were like my colleagues working together, like that. And being a coordinator for the Seattle region, some of these players, we had to do the tryouts and work with them. And then I was the West Zone team manager for the national tournament where the names, which I would say are like Shadley, Sarah and Nisar Patel, they were all part of the WEZ team. So it was a great experience to watch their dedication and hard work and see that coming through the results now that we are seeing.

Miller: What did it mean just globally for the U.S. to beat Pakistan?

Naik: This is tremendous. So this kind of result happens once in my lifetime. This is the second time I’ve witnessed an associate team beating a big international team. So that is really like an upset, but I don’t want to take the hard work and dedication these players have put in. They are talented players and on a given day they can beat any team. Like if you see the last game against South Africa, they were just three hits away from the win. So until the 18th over, they were on target, like 12 balls, 27 runs to win. And that was entirely doable. So that particular cricket, Herman Singh, not getting out, the result would have been different.

Miller: You’re getting attention to some of the details of how the game works. Srini, can you give us the basics of how cricket works?

Ramakrishna: Pretty similar to baseball, I would say, except that baseball has four bases and we have just two. And in baseball there is also a batter and a pitcher. In cricket, we call the pitcher the bowler. Then there’s the batter, who is also there, who hits the ball and then gets some runs for his team.

Miller: But am I right that in cricket, you could hit the ball in 360 degrees of direction as opposed to whatever, I don’t know ...

Ramakrishna: 270 degrees.

Miller: To the foul line. So, that’s a huge difference just like in terms of opening up your conception of what the field is.

Ramakrishna: True. It’s a 360 experience. The cricket pitch is laid right in the middle of the ground and then the players surround you just to block your hits. And then if your hit is taken without the ball pitching on the ground, then you are considered out. That’s how it is. And then if the ball travels beyond the boundary line rolling over, it’s a four run. Then if it’s a full head, it’s a six. That’s how it is.

Miller: For Americans who don’t know too much about cricket, one of the things that they might think – and I have to say this was my understanding until I started hearing a little bit more about T20 – is that cricket games or matches can go on for four or five days.

Ramakrishna: That is true. Yes.

Miller: That’s true. But there are also some that are much shorter?

Ramakrishna: Yes. Right now, the tournament, what is going on is the shortest version which wraps up in the matter of about three hours – 180 minutes to be precise. And there is another test match, what they call, it’s mostly to test players’ endurance, whether he can last for five days, and then how it goes. And that’s how it is.

Miller: When you say five days, how many hours might they play each of those five days?

Ramakrishna: It’s a regular day job – for eight to nine hours.

Miller: Whoa, for five straight days?

Ramakrishna: It starts at nine o’clock and ends at five o’clock. That’s how it is.

Miller: Clock in, clock out.

Ramakrishna: Clock in, clock out. It’s the same way.

Miller: Srini, can you give us a sense for the growth you’ve seen in cricket participation since you came to the U.S. or since you came to the Northwest?

Ramakrishna: I could say, going by my own league – which we run here by the president and the vice president, Arun Batish and Suresh Nair – has started this with a vision. They got bored playing among themselves or against each other, so they decided to open up to the public. Whoever is interested, they could just form a team and then come over and play. And then probably they started around two decades ago with probably about three to four teams. Then there is one more individual who came in with his battalion of about two to three teams and PMOC grew. Today, we are about 30 teams.

Miller: So from five or six to 30, over 20 years.

Ramakrishna: And then it’s still growing.

Miller: Satish, how about you? Have you seen similar growth?

Naik: Yes, Northwest Cricket League was formed in 1995 [and] for a while, we had about eight teams, 12 teams, 24, like that. In 2014, we used to have about 24 teams. Right now, we see that growth is 64 teams [that] are playing all over from Pacific Northwest, Oregon. Like two teams from Oregon come over here. Spokane, Washington State University students come and play. So the growth is constant, exponential. And with this World Cup, we anticipate more interest and more people wanting to play cricket.

Miller: Does that interest, Satish, carry over to things like the academy that you run? This is for young players ages, I think seven to 19. Have you seen an increase in young people who are either choosing to do it or having their parents push them into it?

Naik: Yeah, absolutely. Compared to 2017, in the last four or five years, I could see the young kids playing cricket, not just for recreational playing, [but] serious cricket has increased like 10 times. In 2017, I used to see maybe 10, 15 proper cricket playing kids, youths. So now with many academies coming up and then each academy is having like hundreds of kids participating, there are about 802,000 youths playing cricket in this region.

Miller: And are most of those young people you’re talking about of South Asian descent or is there a broader appeal right now?

Naik: Right now, South Asian, plus the people who have cricketing backgrounds, like people who have lived in the U.K., New Zealand, Australia. We have some players coming from there, who moved here for their jobs, but not like local Americans are coming and trying out.

Miller: Srini, what do you think it would take to increase interest among people who come from countries or live in a country now like the U.S., where cricket has just not been a part of the culture? How do you get folks who didn’t grow up with cricket to love cricket?

Ramakrishna: Well, as ironic as it may sound, way back in probably [the] 1840s or something, the first one of the first cricket test matches was played between the USA and Canada, and the cricket did exist and it was played in New York.

Miller: OK, but that was, what, 160 years ago?

Ramakrishna: Many, many years ago. And almost a century later, it visits again and New York is hosting the tournament, and USA is playing Canada for the first time in the T20 tournament, which was a very nostalgic moment for both the countries. So to cut to the chase, what I’m trying to tell you is America is an inclusive country. That’s my experience so far. I’m sitting in front of you and talking to you about cricket, that proves it.

So I’m pretty sure with the USA team performing very well, I’m sure there will be more sponsors, and then the MLC leagues and everything coming into play. I’m pretty sure cricket is here to stay. And also, I’m hoping that I can pull in some of my American friends. I’m also actually forcing some of my baseball friends to come and play cricket.

Miller: If you watch some softball game on, in some park on a Sunday, do you scout for potential cricket talent?

Ramakrishna: I have done that in the past.

Miller: And how much does it translate?

Ramakrishna: Probably 1%.

Miller: One percent and all you gotta do is get the other 99%?

Ramakrishna: Yes. No, they are too busy playing their baseball and they’re having their own leagues and everything. They don’t want to leave something which they know and then try something, but they have tried their hands in the cricket. Then the hand eye coordination is slightly different when it comes to holding a cricket bat versus a baseball bat.

Miller: I’m so bad at baseball that we actually … you’ve been kind enough to show, when we’re done with the show, you’re going to take me to the nearby park and show me. So luckily, I have no good skills that are going to be ruined by a new sport.

Ramakrishna: If I was a professional, you would have been interviewing in New York.

Miller: Satish, you can’t play this game on a baseball diamond. There’s a backstop there, so you can’t have a 360 degree game on an American baseball diamond. What are the challenges of actually finding fields where you can play in the U.S.?

Naik: So, to be honest, some of the scenarios where, what you’re mentioning, we have worked around that situation. Like in some parks, where you don’t have much space, we convert it into like 1D, 2D, declares like that. For example, if a ball goes behind you, consider as a one run or two run. Having said that, working with cities, working with schools, working with park authorities, that is a challenge to prove that cricket is required for the community. There is a demand. It takes a lot of paperwork, a lot of convincing to go work with them to sanction a ground for cricket use. In many cases, we use multiple usage grounds. For example, [for] two soccer fields, in between we put a cricket pitch and then we rent both the soccer field to have a cricket game. So to have a dedicated cricket ground, it’s a challenge, but work in progress. We are working and then now with this popularity, more and more support we might get from cities and communities.

Miller: Srini, we have about 30 seconds left, but I understand you have a daughter. Have you passed on your love of cricket to her?

Ramakrishna: Yes. And she’s into baseball, I mean, basketball rather. And she tried her hands in baseball. She says it’s so much like cricket and I will try some day, but then she wants to do basketball right now.

Miller: How do you feel about that?

Ramakrishna: As far as she is into some sports, I’m OK with that.

Miller: Srini Ramakrishna and Satish Naik, thanks very much.

Ramakrishna: Thank you very much.

Naik: Thank you very much.

Ramakrishna: And I hope this will take cricket to the next level and all our city officers are listening.

Miller: Every single city officer is listening right now, I promise you.

Ramakrishna: They would probably give us a crown which would be more towards the cricket field.

Miller: OK, from your lips to the city officials, fields. Srini Ramakrishna is secretary and treasurer of the Portland Metro Open Cricket League. Satish Naik is secretary of the Northwest Cricket League and one of the coordinators for the Seattle region of USA Cricket.

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