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San Ramon plans cricket ground
(Feb 22, 2005)
By Scott Marshall
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
SAN RAMON - The city is creating a ground for cricket players, including
a team of residents who have been playing at a Central Park ball field.
This is one local response to the desires of an increasingly diverse
community.
"I think a lot of people will be interested to come and play," said
Rajesh Nadar, an SBC information technology employee and captain of the
San Ramon-based team.
Ten of the 11 players on the team live in San Ramon, said Nadar, from
Trivandrum in the southernmost portion of India. He is a two-year San
Ramon resident.
Cricket, which dates to the 13th century, has similarities to baseball
and is widely played in England, Australia, New Zealand, India,
Pakistan, Sri Lanka and throughout the Caribbean.
Each team fields 11 players, with a 12th player held in reserve.
The best cricket grounds regionally are in Sunnyvale and San Jose, and
teams in the Northern California Cricket Association and the Bay Area
Cricket Alliance play throughout the area.
These matches, and even tournaments, could be held at the new San Ramon
grounds, in the new Monarch Park in the Shapell section of Dougherty
Valley. Known as a cricket "pitch," the new field will be of regulation
size and will have special turf.
City recreation professionals began considering a cricket pitch about a
year ago, said John Skeel, a division manager with San Ramon's Parks and
Community Services Department. Skeel is a native of England who grew up
watching what was then one of England's best cricket teams in County
Sussex, England.
"It will be so nice to have," said Skeel, a certified park and
recreation professional who also holds a master's degree in the
recreation field.
"I played it as a kid," and he took it for granted until he moved to the
United States and found that Americans play baseball, Skeel said. He
missed seeing cricket, Skeel said, and figures other immigrants feel the
same way.
"If this takes off, we will do other things," Skeel said. "We want to
make sure we have the right balance."
The park will have other fields for commonly played sports, and the
cricket pitch will have a youth cricket ground. It will be in an area
that also can be used as a soccer field.
"Nobody really said this is what we want, but we've observed, we've
observed the trend," said Esther Lucas, division manager for recreation
in Parks and Community Services.
"This park is going to be a jewel anyway," Lucas said. "We will put in
butterfly plants that will attract them, signage so people can learn
about them and, also, hopefully an area for public art."
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