Archived Edition: October 19, 2004 | Back to Current	Jul 31, 2010

Cricket Club takes to the sidewalks of campus

Members of the community may have noticed a group of students playing an unfamiliar sport on the sidewalks of the Science Quad and Sawyer Lawn. No, it’s not a stickball revival, or a bunch of confused baseball players. It’s just the Williams College Cricket Club (WCCC) having some fun on the wicket.

The life story of the WCCC is long and complicated. The original idea belongs to Abid Shah ’02, and the first coming of the Cricket Club enjoyed a brief period of success during the 2001-2002 school year before falling into inactivity.

It was revived a couple years later by Hamaad Ravda ’05 and Saroj Bhattaria ’05 before again falling into obscurity when Ravda left to study at Oxford. However, a cricket enthusiast from India, Ananda Burra ’07, re-founded the club this fall and now serves as self appointed “Emperor and President-for-Life.”

“I wanted the club to be a place where people who wanted to play, watch and discuss cricket could come and meet,” Burra said.

With cricket being less than well represented in the United States, those students for whom cricket was a huge part of their family and cultural lives before arriving at Williams felt a large void. Many international students, particularly those from the Indian subcontinent and other commonwealth nations, grew up with cricket coursing through their veins.

According to Ravda, a native of Pakistan, one can “call it homesickness, call it die-hard love for their game, but we felt that we needed to show people how cricket could excite the wild levels of passions that it did in our countries and many others around the world.”

WCCC members are quick to point out that many preconceptions about the sport are inaccurate. For instance, club member Rowena Ahsan ’07 says, “I know the general impression of cricket is that it’s a slow, complicated game. But really, once you experience an entire stadium full of people standing on their feet and cheering…it’s hard to explain how amazing it is.”

To expose more students to the exciting and intense sport of cricket, WCCC is working on holding events during which high-profile professional cricket matches would be broadcast live on television.

Now that enough students have shown interest in the sport and the club, the leaders have set lofty, but completely realistic goals.

“Given the turnout we have been having, my new aim is to make cricket a mainstream sport at Williams – something along the lines of rugby or WUFO,” Burra said.

“Our biggest wish is to create a Williams Cricket Team, which can take on the likes of Amherst, Wesleyan, UPenn, Colgate, Franklin and Marshall and other colleges in this area which already have cricket teams,” Ravda said. “The desire to defeat Amherst at one more thing was also a big reason for the formation of the Cricket Club.”

In order to achieve these aims, WCCC’s plan over the next few months is to get its members match-ready. The club is hoping to move play into the Towne Field House in order to practice with hard, authentic cricket balls instead of soft practice balls.

In anticipation of College Council (CC) funding for new protective equipment and other cricket gear, practice will continue in earnest in the hope of having enough proficient cricket players to form both an A and B team by the end of Winter Study. The WCCC’s first games are scheduled after spring break, and they are aiming for about 3 or 4 intercollegiate contests before the end of the spring semester.

Those interested in playing cricket for WCCC should not feel that years of experience are a prerequisite for play. On the contrary, many of the members have either never played cricket before or not since childhood. “We are very receptive to all levels,” Ravda said before adding, “more gals would be welcome.”

Burra agreed, saying, “the cricket club is open to all – regardless of experience. We really want to encourage rookies to come out and play.”

Fun abound the WCCC, extending from practice to the actual leadership of the club. Board positions do not follow the traditional name pattern;they “have a certain flavor to them,” said Burra. “We have a Grand Vizier, a Master of Coin and a Mistress of Wine Cellars. We are also going to start collecting dues and having cricket parties and the like.”

For all those interested in taking part in the WCCC, matches are played twice weekly: every Saturday at 2 p.m. on Sawyer lawn and Thursday at 4 p.m. in the Science Quad. So next time you see a band of students running between wickets with bats screaming at once in English, Hindi and Urdu, don’t be puzzled – it’s just a bunch of Williams Cricketers.