Photography by Dakota Gilbert
Sure, the 518 is home to traditional American sports of all sorts: baseball, football…You name it. But there’s so much more to explore when you look beyond the basketball court. This story is part of a larger section featuring Capital Regionites who are channeling their athletic energy into the more niche sports of table tennis, roller derby, and cricket.
When it comes to watching sports in the Capital Region, the first thing that comes to mind might be attending a football game at MVP Arena or baseball game at Joseph L. Bruno Stadium. If it were up to Michael Hinrichs and Ashok Adikoppula of the Capital District Cricket Association (CDCA), attending a cricket match would take its rightful place on that same list.
Massively popular in India, Europe, and throughout the Commonwealth countries, cricket, a distant cousin of baseball that’s played with a flat bat and two wickets instead of four bases, is the world’s second most popular sport with an estimated 2.5 billion fans. And yet here in upstate New York, most people don’t even know the rules. Fueled by grassroots organizing and a sheer love for the game, the folks behind the CDCA have been dedicated to promoting cricket in our region since 2015.
“There are hundreds of teams in New York City,” says Adikoppula, “But as you step out a couple of hours, you’re barely able to find a single team. We thought there was a huge potential here.”
That hunch proved to be correct. What started as cricketers meeting for games in public parks across Albany turned, over time, into a thriving community of players that eventually drew attention on a national level.
Now, our region is home to the NY Ovals cricket facility—a 1,260-seat venue that made history as the first natural turf cricket facility in the northeast region of the United States.
Located at 4281 Amsterdam Road in Schenectady, the NY Ovals hosts the Women’s and Men’s National Teams as well as youth and adult leagues. With education at the heart of the CDCA’s mission, both the organization and the facility serve as a welcome point for anyone in the area who’s curious about the game.
“There will be a lot of parents, coaches, and volunteers who will be more than willing to explain the game to somebody who hasn’t grown up playing,” says Adikoppula. His invitation to the community? “Just come and enjoy the sport.”
