Cricket moves indoors at Fleming
Local team hosts challengers from Centennial, Seneca and Georgian
Saturday marked a milestone for Fleming College athletics and the Peterborough cricket community.
The Fleming Knights hosted their inaugural OCAA extramurals indoor cricket tournament at the Peterborough Sport and Wellness Centre.
Fleming, which started a team last season, hosted teams from Centennial, Seneca and Georgian colleges. Centennial edged Fleming 50-49 in the final.
Just hosting their own tournament was a victory as far as Deepak Kumar was concerned. The international student from India approached Jane Bolin in Fleming’s athletics department two years ago with an interest in starting a cricket team. Bolin reached out for assistance from the Peterborough Cricket Association while Kumar recruited fellow international students to play. They played in a series of tournaments last year with limited success. This year they hired a head coach and the team had much more success, including winning the first tournament of the year at Humber College.
Extra-murals is a non-varsity inter-collegiate league where students cover the costs.
It was a special day to see cricket played on Fleming ground for all involved.
“We have risen up like a star,” said Kumar. “It was very special for us because Fleming was hosting for the first time. We would have liked to have won the tournament because it is the last one of the season. We lost it by one point but this is also a win for us because we have done a great job the last few months.”
Kumar will graduate this year and he hopes the team will continue. All 10 players were from India but they’d love to add other international students and some Canadians.
“It’s my hope that this will keep going and we’ll keep finding good players for our team,” he said.
Cricket is an outdoor game but with so much of the college season during the winter months the game is adapted for indoors.
They use a tennis ball wrapped in tape and shorten the games to about 45 minutes.
“The indoor cricket game is very difficult,” said Kumar.
Peterborough Cricket Association board member Pradeep Naik said Peterborough has a rich history of the sport. It was played here in the 1800s and 1960s and revived over the last decade or more by the local club. They have a home field at Milroy Park
“Our dream was always to bring cricket to Peterborough,” said Naik. “We’ve tried all along to revive the game and Fleming taking this initiative was a good step ahead. I credit Jane Bolin for getting this started.
“It is our dream come true that Fleming is hosting a tournament in Peterborough and other teams are coming to play us,” said Naik, who would like to also see Trent University floor a team.
“For new international students looking at Fleming this gives them another reason to come when they see they have a cricket team,” said Naik.
In his first year as coach Rajeevan Vinayagamoorthy, a Sri Lankan national, said he was impressed how quickly his players adapted to the indoor game.
“This is a little different from outdoor cricket,” he said. “They started to play cricket only last year but I wasn’t here. They played five tournaments last year and qualified for only one semi. This year we were in five tournaments and were champions in one and qualified for two other finals and two semifinals.”
The top two teams advanced to the final after playing each other once in round-robin play. Roundrobin scores included: Georgian 35, Fleming 34; Centennial 47, Seneca 43; Fleming 44, Seneca 43; Centennial 46, Georgian 40; Georgian 45, Seneca 44; Fleming 31, Centennial 30.