Mike Andrako, public service director for the City of Marysville, hits the inaugural ball at the Marysville Cricket Field at Union County Joint Recreation District. The field opened to the public on Wednesday after the efforts of some Marysville locals that had no place to play the sport at any of the parks around town.
(Journal-Tribune photo by Sam Dillon)
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The game of cricket is something that not a whole lot of people in the United States know about, but in actuality it has an estimated fan base of nearly 2.5 billion, mostly across Asia, Australia and the United Kingdom.
Now Marysville can be added to that list.
The Marysville Cricket Field officially opened to the public on Wednesday after the hard work of some local cricket players and the cooperation of the Union County Joint Recreation District (UCJRD) board and the City of Marysville.
“These guys approached us and they needed a home to play,” said Dave Raymond, Chairmen of the UCJRD board. “It is quite a big field and we thought it would be a great opportunity to bring a different type of sport into Marysville and diversify a bit.”
Cricket is a game that is played with a bat and ball, like baseball, but the field of play is 360 degrees and the batting and pitching take place in the center of the field on the pitch.
A bowler, like a pitcher in baseball, hurls a hard ball towards a hitter on the opposing team.
The hitter tries to guard wickets, three vertical sticks, from being struck by the ball and putting it in play.
Wickets are located at each end of the pitch. Once the hitter makes contact with the ball, they run back and forth between wickets to score runs, while the defense, 10 players on the field, field the ball and return it to the bowler.
A local group of cricket players have been trying to find a place to play the sport for years with no real luck.
“We were trying for like two years to find some place to play, we couldn’t find a place that was what we needed,” said Umapathi Gavi, a local cricket player.
“It has been like seven or eight months of discussion with them (UCJRD) about the game of cricket and we ended up with something like this today and we are very happy for that.”
Marysville has a number of local cricket players to form a team, but the lack of a field is what has kept them from competing in anything other than fun and practice, according to Gavi.
“There are not a lot of cricket grounds around Central Ohio, but there are leagues around here, but we couldn’t play in one because we didn’t have our own cricket field,” added Gavi.
With the addition of this cricket field the players in Marysville will be able to make an official team in which they can compete in league play and even host their own tournaments.
“One big league around here is the MCT, the Midwest Cricket Tournament, they have three regions,” said Srikanth Ramidi. “One is the Columbus area, one is the Cleveland area and the other is the Southwest, which includes Cincinnati and Kentucky. First they play locally and then they play against each other. That is one tournament we are trying to target.”
After getting the support from the UCJRD the local cricket players want to spread the game of cricket to the City of Marysville.
“Some of our plans is to get information out that we want to teach the people and young kids the game,” said Gavi. “There are also some clubs in Dublin that have teams for small kids and we would like to invite them here to play against kids here.”