Youth cricket league joins national group

NEW MILFORD — The town’s youth cricket league has been accepted into the National Youth Cricket League (NYCL)

“We tried to get in last year too but unfortunately missed the deadline,” said Jay Singh, who has been running the New Milford Cricket Club for more than 15 years and coaches New Milford’s younger cricket players, too.

“With growing interest from parents, we are fortunate to be accepted by NYCL to participate in a regional tournament and potentially qualify for nationals.”

The NYCL schedule will come out in March, Singh said, and he hopes to have the under-13 and under-17 co-ed teams participating. The national league has been around since 2014 when there were 18 member teams. There are now at least 69, according to its website.

Singh called it “exciting news for New Milford cricket.”

The New Milford Cricket Club was established in 2006 after breaking from the Danbury Cricket Club, and is one of six clubs that make up the Southern Connecticut Cricket Association. On its website, the group writes: “Whether you are a newcomer to the sport of cricket or want to play competitively, there's a place for you in our club.”

The news of the youth league’s acceptance to the NYCL comes nearly one year after the town approved construction of a new cricket pitch, batting cage and practice pitch at Clatter Valley Park in February of 2021. At the time, construction costs were expected to hit around $25,000.

In May, after roughly a year of practice, the youth cricket team hosted an ‘historic’ tournament against another youth team from Norwalk. By August, the club hit another historic “first” with the formation of the town’s first female cricket team, the New Milford Tigers.