Cricket field taking shape

Think about people playing sports at a Henrico County public school, and you might imagine students dribbling a soccer ball across a grassy field, aiming to score against the opposition. Or perhaps you'd picture infielders and outfielders situated around a baseball diamond, crouching into position as the pitcher delivers the ball to home plate.

What probably doesn’t come to mind is the image of a batter standing in front of a wicket, guarding it by swinging his bat at an incoming ball. What probably doesn’t come to mind is the image of people playing cricket.

But that is what happens on school fields in certain parts of Henrico on weekends.

The growing popularity of the sport has created a need for cricket fields in the county that has prompted the construction of one at Deep Run Park as part of a $648,900 renovation project.

The 7-acre project will comprise renovations to three existing multipurpose fields to create an international-standard cricket field that has a clay pitch.

It also will upgrade walkways and paths, install cricket batting cages, provide grassy, banked seating and include stormwater drainage.

A ground-breaking ceremony for the start of construction of the cricket field took place June 8.

The project was implemented to accommodate the growing participation in cricket locally and meet demand for field space – a need that has become evident recently. Scheduling issues have arisen on existing multipurpose fields that are sometimes used for cricket – specifically a recreational variant called softball cricket that requires less equipment, materials, time and preparation, said Henrico Recreation and Parks Director Neil Luther.

“The challenge with the softball group, in particular, is because they don't need as much space. They were playing on baseball fields, which was creating a problem for us because we had baseball groups that would show up and there were cricket groups out there,” Luther said. “This field, and the creation of this renovation at Deep Run, is going to take off some pressure from competing scheduling of uses on fields.”

Playing cricket on existing county fields also poses maintenance problems, Luther said.

Plan has critics, supporters
Nearly every Henrico County school's ball field was being used on weekends for cricket, Three Chopt District Supervisor Tommy Branin said. Requests for a cricket field have been discussed for about a decade, he said.

“Six to 10 years ago, there was a cry out for more legitimate playable cricket pitches,” Branin said.

Branin has advocated for the construction of a new cricket field in Three Chopt for more than six years, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Zulfi Khan, president of the Mid-Atlantic Cricket Conference and chairman of the Central Virginia Cricket Association, foresees that the additional cricket field will be helpful, especially so that tournaments can finish more quickly.

The construction of the cricket field has been met with both support and criticism.

“Who even plays cricket!?!?” one commenter wrote on the Henrico County government Facebook page. “Such a large amount of money to cater to such a tiny interest.”

Another commenter wrote: “It is an extremely popular sport in the South Asian community. Fairfax County has had public cricket parks for years, and when I lived there, Indian restaurants would stay open all night to watch India play in the championships. Henrico has one of the fastest growing South Asian populations in Virginia, and creating a cricket field – which is basically just a refitted baseball diamond – just adds to our recreational options. [Brookland] Supervisor [Dan] Schmitt, who is extremely knowledgeable about recreational sports, said at his town meeting the other night that there have been many requests from the community to provide this.”

The Greater Richmond Cricket Club has witnessed its membership grow from six to 10 players in 1987 to hundreds of players today, according to Rajeev Khanna, an avid cricket fan and co-founder of the club.

Last summer, the Richmond Strikers youth sports organization also started its summer cricket program and currently organizes three 8-week cricket programs throughout the year.

Fields won’t be exclusive to cricket
The project does not mean that the fields will be used only for cricket, Luther said.

"It's the renovation of the fields,” Luther said of the effort. “It's everything that goes into a renovation. It's not just cricket. Again, it's all the other things that we would had to have done anyway even if we weren't building a cricket bowling pitch. We still would have done or had to do the same things that we're doing with this project to address drainage, to address grass conditions, to address the irrigation system."

The last time a major renovation was done to the grass for the fields was about a decade ago, he said. Renovations to the fields now will generally improve them for public use.

Construction has been occurring for approximately two weeks, Luther said.

“Henrico officials initially discussed constructing a cricket field at Deep Run as projects were being planned for the 2016 bond referendum,” according to a county press release. “Officials ultimately decided to accelerate the project, with the Board of Supervisors awarding a contract for construction in May.”

The contractor had requested to start earlier in order for the grass to successfully grow during the right climate conditions in the fall, Branin said.

Making these renovations and installing a cricket field will not make the fields exclusionary, Luther said – they still can be used for sports such as soccer, lacrosse, Frisbee, recreational football and other activities.

“It certainly is a direct benefit to the cricket group, because we are very conscious of doing this renovation around some specific parameters for cricket,” Luther said. “But it doesn't become an exclusionary field. Again, we can still, when this project is complete, line out the grass for three soccer fields, just like there are today.”

Branin also said that the fields were meant for multipurpose use for cricket, soccer and lacrosse.

Having cricket pitches in the renovated fields is a “very important factor to accommodate and to facilitate the vibrancy and the participation of the communities who like that game, to be alive in this community,” Khan said.

He added that the presence of cricket would also help attract people to Henrico County.

Construction is expected to be finished by early October, Luther said.