Meadows, Maryland Park face off in cricket

Prince Patel didn’t realize moving to Brandon from India would mean leaving his favourite sport behind.

“I felt good and excited to come here. I was so excited to make new friends and play cricket,” said Patel, who quickly found out the game wasn’t quite so popular in western Manitoba.

But he wasn’t alone. He soon realized dozens more kids were in a similar position, so they just started playing cricket together wherever they found the space.

He went to Meadows School, where teacher Mona Moria saw the same need for the sport when she moved to Brandon in 2014.

The India native, who lived in British Columbia before heading to the Wheat City, put matters into her own hands and assembled Brandon’s first junior high team. She noticed how many students had migrated from India and realized the potential was there.

Maryland Park School did the same, and on a sunny Wednesday afternoon at Meadows, the schools played the city’s first-ever junior high cricket scrimmage.

“I see how kids are eager, because Meadows has most of the kids that just came to Canada a couple of years ago, and they were missing that in Canada,” Moria said. “I just thought, ‘Why don’t we start our own game and see if we can do it?’

“I’m happy. You can see how they are happy right now.”

Dev Shah, who moved from India in 2018, showcased both a cannon of a bowling arm and strong fielding ability to catch one well-struck Maryland Park hit.

As he brought the ball down, six teammates immediately ran over to join him in jubilation.

“I thought there was going to be a lot of opportunities here, but there was no cricket. We started playing, and now we have it here,” Shah said.

“It’s really fun. There’s a lot of opportunities here to improve my skills.”

The Meadows players are eager to see the game grow in other schools and hope that even Canadian-born students who haven’t seen the game before give it a shot.

“Pretty excited for having two schools coming in and starting playing cricket,” said Meshwa Patel.

“Cricket’s really popular because everybody’s really nice, really kind and really sweet, and they help you understand the game.”

Down the road, Moria wants to see these opportunities translate into bigger ones in the future. She said her brother competed in a national championship back in India and knows some of her athletes have solid potential in the sport.

“This is the right time for them to start because this is the right age,” Moria said.

“I will advise kids that they should join as soon as possible if they want to be part of the big games.

“In the future, I want them playing at the national level or international level.”

» tfriesen@brandonsun.com

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