The new Cricket Club at San Francisco State University will hold its inaugural event with a friendly tournament open to the public at the Mashouf Wellness Center’s Multipurpose Recreation Field on Sunday, March 9, from noon to 6 p.m.
For those who have never heard of this sport, Cricket Club social media coordinator and second-year computer science student Khushvi Patel said they are welcome regardless of their experience, or lack thereof, in the sport.
“I really want to pass this message: to come and even if you do not know about cricket, watch and I am damn sure you will become a fan,” Patel said.
As a woman in a predominantly male sport, Patel’s passion for the sport still burned through the challenges. She found other women at SFSU who were interested in cricket at a tabling event she coordinated earlier this semester for the club.
“To all the other people who are not men, even if you don’t know, come watch it,” Patel said. “We will teach you, and it will be a lot of fun.”
The idea of the club came from a group effort when a team of international students got together and manifested their desire to start a sports club. Cricket, unlike baseball or basketball, has never been at SFSU before.
Cricket is the second most viewed sport in the world, followed by soccer. It has a global fan base of about 2.5 billion people, with most in Asia, Australia and the U.K.
Computer science student Daivik Domadiya is the president of the Cricket Club. He is a second-year student who lived on campus in his first semester. During that time, he met lots of students and networked with neighbors and classmates in dining halls and dorms, where Domadiya started to gauge and spread interest in the sport.
“We have been taught cricket since childhood. Back home in India, it is the number one sport,” Domadiya said. “Cricket is in our blood.”
Far from home, a small group of international students at SFSU were homesick for their national pastime and asked themselves, “Why don’t we have a cricket team?” With an initial group of just six members, that number grew to over 100 in one year, according to Domadiya.
“We knew there were a lot of Desi students at SF State who wanted to play but did not have the resources or facilities. I was one of those students,” said Malhar Kansara, the club’s vice president and a batter. “That’s when the idea of forming a team started to make sense.”
Kansara, who is a second-year computer science student, said there were obstacles to starting the club. One was the financial requirements of starting a team, so they started working with SFSU’s Indian Student Association. That collaboration led to the team operating under Campus Recreation. According to Domadiya, the team must sustain itself for one year before they can receive funds from Campus Recreation.
“Currently, we are getting resources from Associated Students for equipment and have started the application process to get sponsorship from businesses like Chipotle so that we may eventually join a league,” Daivik said.
