Grounds for expansion: Tri-cities seek to create 10-year cricket strategy

It’s known as the world’s second most popular sport and in Waterloo Region, participation in cricket is growing rapidly.

“It’s growing tremendously, when I started, you hardly can find cricketers, now, on every street, we find 20 cricketers” said Parveen Sharma with the Southern Ontario Cricket Association (SOCA).

Sharma has dedicated the last 35 years to growing cricket in Waterloo and said for people who love the game, it’s more like a religion.

“I married cricket before I married my wife,” said Sharma.

His own wedding was interrupted by a cricket match.

According Sharma, SOCA now has over 40 teams and thousands of members with growing youth participation as well.

He believes field availability is the biggest obstacle and believes the league needs five more cricket grounds in addition to the eight currently in the region.

The City of Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo said they are working on a cricket strategy.

“Our population has changed over the years with community growth and demographic shifts and we have a large South Asian community in particular that is interested in cricket as well as our student populations who want to play cricket,” said Beth Rajnovich, the manager of community and neighbourhood services with the City of Waterloo.

She said the cities just finished a survey of the cricket community to better understand the issues but said the game also comes with a unique set of issues.

“Cricket pitches (grounds) are large, about two and a half times and wide, and one and a half times as long as a soccer field, so you can imagine a big space that we need to find land to build a new one.”

The cities are working on a region-wide cricket strategy and are looking at other communities like Hamilton and Brampton for ideas.

Rajnovich said the project is about more than sports fields.

“I think sport and recreation are fundamental to personal well-being, to community engagement, to a sense of belonging in a community, and so we want to provide an opportunity for everyone in our community to participate in sport recreation,” Rajnovich said.