It's the world's second most popular sport (behind soccer) and guess what: the popularity of cricket is growing in Fairfax County. Field requests are up and the number of players are increasing.
“There’s definitely an interest in cricket in this area,” said Bilal Javed, team captain of the Woodbridge-based Washington Titans - which is part of the 38-team Washington Cricket League. “There are a lot of immigrants from Pakistan, India, the Caribbean, England, Australia in the area, so people pick up on this sport from their countries, and they come to the U.S. and they see people playing here, they just join.”
Fairfax County is challenged by a lack of space, since large rectangular fields are needed to play cricket. There are currently cricket fields at Lake Fairfax in Reston, at Mark Twain Middle School in Franconia and Woodbridge's Veteran's Field.
"It's becoming more popular as the county diversifies... If you have two large rectangle fields together you can put a pitch between them," said Sandy Stallman of the Fairfax County Park Authority. "The challenge is that it's a very large footprint and most of our fields are multi-use fields."
Fairfax County received 198,432 athletic field users between July 2012 and July 2013. Of those, 783 athletes played cricket, an increase 225 players since 2008.
"We were not able to accommodate 325 players last year," said Karen Avvisato with the Fairfax County Department of Neighborhood and Community Services.
"You just can't find the space for those gigantic fields. We're too built out in Fairfax."
Do you know how to play cricket? Should field use be more available? Tell us what you think in the comments section below!
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