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Aakanksha Tangri, Action Cricket Canada, Cricket Canada, India Cricket Team, Preet Singh, Sports
The first thing that strikes you about Preet Singh is his confidence and swagger. Once you hear the traces of Punjabi in his accent, you are reminded of Yuvraj Singh, the renowned Indian cricketer. The same slow thick drawl, the hint of a paunch, the stubble on the face and a passion for cricket. They even went through the same grueling grind as aspiring cricketers practicing at the Mohali Cricket Stadium in Punjab, India. The only difference is that while Yuvraj is now one of India’s highest paid athletes, Preet gave it up on his parents’ insistence to focus on his education.
Now at 26 years, he’s in his final semester studying global business management at Humber College and has picked up the game again.
“Cricket is my passion. I love cricket. If there’s rain or snow outside, I will still go and play because I love this game so much,” Singh says.
After moving to Toronto in January 2010, Singh’s friends forced him to go try out for a local club after watching him hammer them in a friendly game. He was selected to play as an all-rounder in fourth-division for the GTA Challengers under the Toronto and District Cricket Association.
Looking at his impressive performance, he was then promoted to play first-division for the Brave Lions Cricket Club.
“In 18 months, I’ve gotten to the premier league instead of wasting four years. In 2012, I will play for either premier or elite depending on what my supervisors decide,” Singh said.
He hopes to eventually play for the Canadian Cricket Team because of less competition instead of going back to India and trying to battle it out among thousands of aspiring cricketers to secure a spot on a domestic club.
“Compare Canada and India and look at their population, 33 million versus one billion, you can see how much competition there is in India in any field,” he said.
According to the Toronto Sports Council, there are currently 95 different sports being played in Toronto. It may be the second most popular sport in the world after soccer, but for many Torontonians, cricket is alien, too complicated and boring. For international students like Singh, Toronto’s dominant sport, hockey is alien, too violent and boring.
“I didn’t know about ice hockey in India and what is that other sport called?” Singh asked imitating the swing of a baseball bat.
Ironically, India’s national sport isn’t cricket. It’s the less popular and ignored field hockey.
Up in the wee hours of the night, Varun Harirajan was glued to his computer screen watching an intense match between by archrivals India and Sri Lanka in the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup final.
Between studying for exams and keeping up with the world cup, the 20-year old University of Toronto Mississauga student, was one of many international students who woke up at odd hours to watch their beloved cricket teams play. Harirajan, a fourth-year student from India, says he is indifferent to hockey and all the hype surrounding it in Toronto.
“I find it too aggressive, too physically demanding and violent. You also need to know how to skate and I don’t,” he said
Harirajan’s interest in hockey stops at virtually battling it out on Xbox.
Mandeep Dass has never heard of the Toronto Maple Leafs and upon mentioning hockey, he clarifies if it’s ice hockey or field hockey you’re talking about.
“Hockey? You mean field hockey?” asks Dass, a first-year accounting student from India studying at Centennial College.
“I don’t know whether Toronto has a ice hockey team,” Dass said about the raison d’être of the city he’s called home for the past three months.
While some international students from South Asia may feel indifferent about ice hockey, there has been growing interest in the sport after the release of Breakaway, a movie about an Indo-Canadian hockey player struggling to balance his family’s expectations and his own aspirations as a hockey player. The movie was produced by one of Bollywood’s most popular actors Akshay Kumar and Canadian comedian Russell Peters.
“The first time I saw ice hockey was in the trailer of Speedy Singh,” Dass said referring to Breakaway by its Hindi title.
Initially, Harirajan felt left out among his Canadian classmates when conversations veered towards hockey.
“I wasn’t able to contribute anything particular to the conversation so I felt a little alienated,” he said.
In his role as community development officer at the Toronto Sports Council, Adam Ali works directly with sports clubs that don’t have enough representation in Toronto and helps them identify their needs and advocates for them. According to him, hockey is one of the toughest sports to get international students involved in.
“It’s tough to get anyone to play hockey because hockey is an expensive sport … so it’s a barrier. It’s very technical,” he said.
Professor John Furedy, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, studies the culture of sport and says it’s not necessarily important to have international students interested in hockey.
“Appreciation for a particular game takes many years to absorb, so I think it is a waste of effort to try to do this for international students who are likely to stay in the country only for a few years,” Furedy said.
However, according to Ali, the City of Toronto has been making a conscious effort to promote cricket.
“Our last mayor completely opened the door to the cricket community. I feel that they [cricket clubs] are good at putting themselves together and trying to build their sport,” Ali said.
As a cricket player, Singh thinks the future of cricket in Toronto is bright because of the increasing population of South Asian immigrants.
“In South Asia, cricket is religion and when South Asians move to Toronto they want to play it here,” he said.
Even if they do have to slightly modify the game.
“The weather is our biggest problem in Toronto. To tackle that, we practice and do all our fitness exercises indoors.”
Echoing similar sentiments, Harirajan says he didn’t get many opportunities to play because of the weather.
“School starts in fall and by the time October comes in, it is already getting really cold so we started playing in the dorm rooms and in the corridors,” he said.
“Some Canadian roommates who had no idea what cricket was got interested and started playing with us.”
With the introduction of Action Cricket Canada in September 2011, cricket fans in Toronto can rejoice. Action Cricket is an indoor cricket arena that will allow
enthusiasts to play all-year round. Action Cricket will have netting cages along with
restaurants and a sports bar featuring live cricket matches from around the world. It also plans on having competitive leagues for people of all ages including school children.
“It’s limited space but it’s really nice that we have it,” Harirajan said.
Singh, on his part, plans on marrying his passion for cricket and his diploma in global business management and starting a business that will import cricket equipment to Toronto.
“For seven months a year, we’re playing cricket indoors so there’s a lot of money to be made,” he said.
