Mining Indian cricket craze in Australia

PERTH: Food, cinema and festivals bring together people of Indian origin living in foreign soil. But cricket is the most common language among all of them. Perth is a shining example of that.

A cricket league which kicked off three years ago in Western Australia is acting as a link between Indians hailing from different states back home and speaking various languages. The Indian Society of Western Australia (ISWA) league sees keen competition. It is already looking to expand the 10-team field in the T20 league.

“We started this league three years back. It’s a huge hit. This year we are including six more teams. The standard is high and even good players find it hard to get into the teams,” Surya Ambatti , Secretary of ISWA, a former Indian Railways engineer, told HT. “Teams are very serious about their cricket.” The Chamber of WA of WA of WA of WA Business

Western Australia Kannada Sangha

Indian Society of WA

Gujarathi Samaj side were the winners last time.

The league is held in April and draws many players of engineering background.

Mining is big in Western Australia and hence many engineers from India work in the mining sector here. With many engineers playing in this league, it is sponsored by companies.

“The league gives me a totally different feeling. You are away from home and because of cricket you meet so many people from India. I am from Gujarat and Surya is from Andhra Pradesh. Because of this league, we are close friends now,” Maharshi Pandya, captain of champions Gujarathi Samaj, said.

Opener Pandya, an accountant, has strong cricket credentials. He was in the Baroda Under-22 side and trained under former India wicketkeeper, Kiran More.

“We have teams like Virsa club and Tamil Association which are strong. There are so many people who want to play this league,” said Ram Krishan Bansal, ISWA treasurer and a pizza chain owner.

“We take only those associations that are registered with the Western Australian Government. We want good teams and don’t want to lower the strandards,” said Surya.

Western Australia Cricket Association (WACA) has played a big role, and provides umpires for the league.