This is Part 2 of 2 of Pitch Imperfect: Local cricketers make the best of diamond life. Part 1 can be found here.
Gaurav Bhatt finds the game anywhere he can; he plays and coaches the Festival’s team against their rivals from the Shaw Festival; he and his players have taken part in matches around the area, while also playing a charity match in Wingham. They’ve played indoors, too … a few times. And there have been times when people stop and stare while they play, but Bhatt doesn’t mind at all.
“All of these past years, we have had many spectators who stop by and see us playing - some of them even joke that it’s not cricket and that we’re playing some kind of hybrid game,” he said. “But there are some who come for the Festival but stop and watch us and appreciate how we are managing to play. We sometimes argue and get on with each other during the games because we’re competitive but we’re having fun.”
Having an up-close perspective on the Festival’s new pitch area, Bhatt can’t hide his excitement at the idea that proper cricket is coming. He’s hopeful of a partnership where they can help maintain the grounds while using them to foster greater growth in the sport locally. But yes, there is excitement building.
“We’ll be able to invite other teams to play with us, we’ll get to have more visitors in our beautiful town, and we’ll hopefully have more people who want to join our club,” he said. “My dream would be to have my team playing on 360-degree grounds. We had to order an artificial plastic mat from Amazon in order to get a good bounce during play. All our members voluntarily contributed what they could, and we’ve all participated in the fund raisers for the project as well.”
Just like a bounce on dirt can go in any direction, the future of the game in Stratford can as well. Bhatt, Hardeep Heer and Pradeesh Pious hope that direction continues pointing the right way, and Bhatt believes the needle is starting to move the way they’re hoping for.
“More and more, people are moving to Stratford and we’re encouraging other people and kids to show an interest in this game,” he said. “We keep encouraging them to play. We’re trying to organize big tournaments, bring down more teams from other cities … hopefully we can help grow this sport in many ways.”
Pious said that with the right facilities in place, there may be no limit to cricket’s growth potential locally.
“Stratford has been seeing a fast growth in immigrant communities, and cricket is not a game admired just by Indians but also by those from the West Indies, Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, South Africa and more,” he said. “We see a lot of our younger generations coming to watch us play, and any opportunity to get a spark in them might change the whole picture. We’ve seen people who go to the Festival come early and watch us before going to their show - this shows how much the local community is interested in getting this game live.”
