Baseball may be known as the American pastime, but it actually originated in England in the form of another bat and ball sport - cricket. With its metamorphosis into baseball, cricket all but vanished from the United States. But it’s starting to make a comeback, and as WBFO reporter Holly Kirkpatrick learned, the sport is flourishing in Buffalo thanks in-part to the South Asian community.
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In this ballgame, batters step up to the crease to score a century, bowlers complete an over, and wicket keepers can make a catch. There are boundaries, sixes, and even something called a googly. If you’re bamboozled by all these terms, then you probably don’t know much about the world of cricket. But the sport is booming in Buffalo.
"You know everybody has a first love? It was kind of like my first love," says cricketer ATM Mainul-Islam, who has played the sport since he can remember. He grew up in Bangladesh, where cricket is a national obsession.
"We kind of grew up playing cricket every single day, mostly in the afternoon when we are kids. So we used to finish school, and after that only one thing we had scheduled: go to the ground and play cricket," Mainul-Islam remembers.
The ballgame originates in England, and spread across oceans and continents in the 17th and 18th centuries along with British colonization. Nowadays, it’s the most popular sport in many South Asian countries, particularly India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
"You know everybody has a first love? It was kind of like my first love," - ATM Mainul-Islam on his love for cricket.
And cricket is getting bigger in the United States too – the first Major League Cricket tournament was held in July 2023. "It is coming to the U.S. and is growing really fast now," Mainul-Islam proclaims.
And on a sunny afternoon in Buffalo, that growth is evident. Two of the league's teams are going head to head at Dewey Park which is home to Buffalo's only public cricket ground.
A construction funded by the City of Buffalo and opened in 2021, Dewey cricket ground is just off Kensington Avenue, and it is where the Buffalo Sports Association’s cricket league plays. Mainul-Islam is one of the league’s organizers.
But how does one explain cricket to people in the U.S. who may not be familiar with the sport? Mainul-Islam has a shortcut that seems to work for him.
"If we want to explain to anybody about cricket in America, we tell them about baseball. So it's pretty close to baseball. Baseball came from cricket somehow."
Cricket is also close to baseball in setting. A cricket ground is similar to a baseball field, but instead of a clay diamond, there is a long thin clay rectangle which is in the middle of the field.
In the last five years or so, the number of cricket teams in Buffalo has more than doubled, growing from around 8 to 10 teams, to a 20-plus team affair. All the players WBFO speaks with at Dewey Park agree that the jump is down to people moving from bigger U.S. cities to Buffalo in that time, many of whom are of South Asian heritage and already play the sport.
So, with only one public cricket ground in Buffalo, the number of teams has rapidly outgrown the number of cricket facilities available.
And there’s another problem. Dewey cricket ground is too small.
"If you hit the ball, it's gonna go to the street. The street is a busy street," Mainul-Islam gestures to the roads surrounding the park, from which throbs a hum of traffic.
"This field is way too small for us. We can barely play," - Cricket player Mohammad Chowdhury on Dewey cricket ground.
As well as being surrounded by roads, houses border the park on two sides - the proximity of which becomes apparent during the match when a player hits the ball over the fence, and out of the cricket ground.
A fielder scales the park's fence, dodges a postal service van as he crosses the street, and scrambles after the ball as it rolls into someone's front yard.
Cricketer MD Hussein explains that this is exactly why a better cricket ground is needed, "As you can see, the ball is going outside and the cars are parked over here and you have houses, windows. It's very dangerous for anyone."
Hussein says this happens frequently, particularly if there are good batters. He feels there are too many hazards to play safely and does not like that players have to take risks on a regular basis.
"That's what we have to go through every time we hit the ball outside the boundary."
Cricketer Mohammad Chowdhury outlines the frictions that the situation has caused with residents.
"Last year I was playing with the little kids here and one of the neighbors, they came, and there was cursing," Chowdhury says. "This field is way too small for us. We can barely play."
In an attempt to solve these problems, the league’s organizers got creative. They took it upon themselves to fund, construct, and lease a private cricket ground at South Buffalo Charter School. Even with this extra ground, Mainul-Islam says it's still not enough to accommodate the blossoming sport. He wants to work with the City of Buffalo to build a suitable public place to play.
The league has even scouted out Buffalo’s parks, and earmarked those they think are suitable for cricket. Mainul-Islam tells me league organizers have contacted Buffalo Common Council members and other city officials numerous times about their needs, but there’s been no movement so far.
Buffalo’s Deputy Commissioner of Parks and Recreation, Andrew Rabb, says he knows that Dewey cricket ground is too small, but that’s because it was designed for youth and development cricket, not adults.
"We're thrilled that there's so much cricket being played in Buffalo. I think we have had a good relationship with the members of the cricket leagues that are using the park for youth development in the City of Buffalo to give kids a place to play cricket, because we haven't had one in the city before."
But Rabb says he has not received a proposal from the league regarding a suitable city park to play cricket, so would request that they send something, "to ensure that what they're proposing is able to fit within some other uses of existing parks, or can be brought to the public if they're looking to repurpose the use of an existing park."
According to Rabb, there are plans for higher fencing to be installed at Dewey Park in an effort to stop the ball hitting surrounding houses. But that doesn’t solve the issue of the ground being too small, or address the need for more places to play.
In the meantime, Mainul-Islam will keep advocating for a suitable place where everybody can play cricket.
