CRICKET, ANYONE?
New league, new field created for fans of the bat-and-ball sport that is played in the British Commonwealth
WOONSOCKET – The local cricket season likely will feature better games by teams from the All Star Cricket Club this summer, thanks to cricket field improvements now being completed at Adrien Bissonnette Field off Elder Ballou Road.
City Public Works Director Steven D’Agostino said the club will be back at Adrien Bissonnette this year after a trial run at Dunn Park last season.
Many of the players in the league are IT professionals from TCS, a data services consultant, and work in East Woonsocket at CVS Health. The games are held after work and on weekends, and can run for several hours while following the International Cricket League format.
“Many of the players in the league live in the city and we are just trying to make use of a city field that is not used at all,” D’Agostino said.
To accommodate the games, a new cricket pitch, or pitching box, is being installed at Adrien Bissonnette near the old softball field area of the field, D’Agostino said.
CSCI Concrete Stamping of Burrillville was installing the pitch which involved putting down a long rectangle of gravel 22 yards long and 10 feet wide and topping it with a layer of concrete and then artificial turf on top.
The pitch is where cricket wickets are set up at each end and each team’s batsman (batter), keeper (wicket defender) and bowler (the pitcher) face off. The team batting has two players on the field, the batsman and keeper, and other side 11 including the bowler and fielders.
When the game is under way, the bowler throws a hard rubber tennis ball across the pitch where it can bounce before being hit by the batsman. The batsman gets six tries to put the ball into play during a batting appearance.
Cricket runs are scored when the batter and the team’s second batter run across the pitch to the opposite wicket while the ball in play is being pursued by the field players. A run is scored when the two make a trip to the opposite side or two runs when they make the round trip. Hitting the ball entirely out of the playing field without a catch by the defending team scores 4 points with a bounce along the way. A line drive out scores 6 points.
Bhagath Siddi of the All Star Cricket Club, watching the field work on Friday, explained that the club had used Adrien Bissonnette in the past but the pitch was just a clear stretch of ground that was prone to being soft and causing erratic batting when wet or damp.
“In international cricket they do the concrete, then they put down the soft soil and then they roll it,” Siddi explained. That takes a lot of work to prepare for a game and maintain the pitch during play, not something that works well here in New England, he said.
“In New England, we just do the concrete and then glue the turf on it,” he explained.
The new arrangement at Adrien Bissonnette should make the local games a bit more exciting for the players and the fans.
When the ball is put into play, the defending players seek to catch it from positions such as the mid off, mid on, point, and square, Siddi noted.
“We were having a lot of uneven bounce,” Siddi said of the past fields used by the teams and their impact on the players fielding and batting.
As for how long the games are played, Siddi said cricket has formats that would match the time it takes the Yankees and the Red Sox to complete a game; or even longer than what it took the Pawtucket Red Sox and Rochester Red Wings to complete the longest game in baseball at McCoy Stadium.
“There are three international formats,” Siddi explained. “In one format they play for five days, another is 50/50 and it takes like nine hours, and the third one which has been popular the last 10 years is 20/20 and you are going to finish in like four hours,” he said.
D’Agostino said that while concerns did surface about parking on Elder Ballou and nearby streets during games at Adrien Bissonnette in the past, a change this year will allow players to park on the front part of the field so cars are off the street during games.
Everything is on a trial basis of course, and D’Agostino said other locations are being looked at as alternatives for the club.
“It’s an interim solution and nothing that is being done is permanent and can’t be removed,” he said.