The Sunnyvale Sun
News
Wicket fun is coming to local Cricket Academy
By HUGH BIGGAR
In a sign of its success developing young players, Cupertino's California Cricket Academy has been awarded a national cricket tournament for the next three years.
The first of the three annual youth tournaments co-sponsored by the United States of America Cricket Association will take place June 22-25. Cricketers from 16 teams will use fields at Dilworth Elementary School, the Cupertino Library, Stanford University and others in the South Bay, which are still being decided.
"It's the first national youth tournament [in the country] so we're excited," said academy co-founder Hemant Buch, adding that an immediate priority is raising the roughly $60,000 needed to help pay for food and rooms for visiting players.
"The U.S. Cricket Association has been watching our progress," Kinjal Buch, a co-founder of the California Cricket Academy, said of the academy's selection to host the tournament.
Since its founding in 2003 as the only youth cricket program in the Bay Area, the California Cricket Academy has grown in popularity.
"We have 200 kids of all ages, although the girls' program has not taken off like we had hoped," Kinjal Buch said.
The academy has two divisions, one for those 10 and under and one for middle and high school students. An effort to launch a program for girls in 2005 has not caught on so far.
The interest at the youth level reflects the wider popularity of the sport in the South Bay, particularly among the South Asian community. Large numbers of South Asians have moved to the Santa Clara Valley in the last two decades, and many of them have retained their passion for cricket--considered to be the national sport of India.
The area is also home to one of the oldest clubs in the Bay Area, the Sunnyvale Cricket Club, established in 1893.
The California Cricket Academy now aims to build on that by developing the next generation of players through its clinics and matches for children up to the age of 15.
For the academy players who stay with the sport, they will find a few opportunities to play in American colleges, as well as opportunities through the U.S.A. Cricket Association. The association has 29 established leagues, 500 clubs and more than 10,000 players. It also represents the United States in the International Cricket Conference, and as a result has a vested interested in new players.
"For the under-15 age group, this is a real opportunity," Kinjal Buch said. "There will be observers looking for players for the U.S. national team."
For more information on the tournament and the California Cricket Academy, visit www.calcricket.org or call 408.777.9983.
