Bowled over: Canada falls back in love with cricket

Winter training challenge

International cricketer Jatinder "Sunny" Matharu, a Winnipegger who has recently represented Canada in Antigua, Oman, Namibia and Zimbabwe, said that winter training was a challenge.

"It's pretty hard," said Matharu, who travels a lot to play for Team Canada, which is based in Toronto. "We have six, sometimes seven months of winter. You need the whole year to train."

Small towns and cities across Canada now host cricket teams. Brandon, Manitoba, which has fewer than 60,000 people, has an all-girls team, as does the 110,000-person city of St John's in Newfoundland.

In the 21,000-population Arctic community of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, cricketers play in the city's fieldhouse in the long winter and on patches of available field when it gets warm enough to play outdoors.

Other sports teams are beginning to reach out to the growing multitude of cricket fans, and Major League Baseball's Toronto Blue Jays held a "Cricket Day at the Park" this year.

"New to cricket? This is a perfect chance to learn more about the sport while still enjoying the game you know and love," said the Blue Jays' promotion.

In Winnipeg, long-time enthusiasts are enjoying the sudden popularity of their game.

"It's nice to just pull up a chair and watch," said Alli, who plays on the over-50 international team.

Garvin Budhoo, a fellow Guyanese immigrant, plays on the over-60 Canadian team.

"All of a sudden we have all these teams," said Budhoo. "Now the kids want to play."

Reuters