In what is a first for Manteca — if not the entire Northern San Joaquin Valley — the city’s police and fire departments are taking each other on in a cricket exhibition game.

The contest is scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 5, at 10 a.m. at Doxey Park, 1355 Northgate Drive.
Manteca’s first cricket field was dedicated last month at Doxey Park.

Another cricket field is being planned as part of the 738-home Hat Ranch neighborhood that will be built in southeast Manteca.

Members of Manteca’s growing cricket community have been helping firefighters and police officers learn the nuances of playing the sport.

In April, some 40 dog feces were dumped on the pitch within days of it being put in place.

It came on the heels of social media postings that ran the gamut from calling for Mayor Gary Singh to resign for allowing a cricket field to be created in the park to racist innuendos dealing with those that play the game that’s birth is rooted firmly in the 16th century during Saxon or Norman times in what is now southeast England.

Councilman Mike Morowit, whose district Doxey Park is located, denounced both the vandalism and racist postings stressing “there is no justification for either.”

Morowit proposed the cricket field as a way of serving Manteca’s growing and diverse community of 91,000.

Lathrop already has two cricket fields — one at Mossdale Landing Park and the other at the park area adjacent to STEAM Academy on River Islands.

There are also cricket fields in Stockton and Lodi.

Cricket — the world’s No. 2 participatory sport behind soccer — is debuting at the 2028 Summer Olympics being conducted in Los Angeles.

Cricket as a sport doesn’t enjoy the same popularity in America as it does elsewhere. The United States doesn’t even crack the Top 25 countries for the sport.

The sport is most popular in India followed by Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, Nepal, Trinidad and Tobago, South Africa, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Jamica, and Afghanistan.

 For more information on Thursday’s cricket match, call (209) 456-8600.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com