Anisa Khalifa: My family is originally from Pakistan, but there's one area where I lose some Pakistani cred — I've never much cared about the game of cricket. Cricket is to South Asians what basketball is to North Carolinians: it's a BIG DEAL. 400 million people tuned in to watch an India-Pakistan match last year, compared to the Super Bowl's 125 million. The actual game — which you could describe as a cross between baseball and chess — I find SO BORING. In some versions of the game, it can take days to play a single match.
(SOUNDBITE OF CRICKET ANNOUNCER)
Unidentified Announcer: Morning.
Unidentified Announcer: Morning, Matt.
Unidentified Announcer: And you said yesterday, not only has it been a superb game of cricket, but as ever with the Sydney test, it just goes on and on.
Anisa Khalifa: The scoring is hard to understand.
(SOUNDBITE OF CRICKET ANNOUNCER)
Unidentified Announcer: And they have conceded the single run, the four, and the wide. The bye is not counted against the bowler, as a cricketing rule, so the bowler has only conceded six runs.
Anisa Khalifa: But the history of the sport as, like, a cultural phenomenon? That I can get behind. And like me, here in the US, a lot of Americans are late to the game. But this year, for the first time in history, America is co-hosting the Men's T20 Cricket World Cup. Ahead of the tournament, teams from around the world came to practice in the US. Specifically — and this was news to me — on a cricket ground just four miles from my house. I went to that ground for the first time… and met someone who moved here to Morrisville, North Carolina, just for cricket.
Philip Service: It's just a matter of time before cricket becomes a day to day sport, a day to day language in the U.S.
Anisa Khalifa: I'm Anisa Khalifa. This is the Broadside — where we tell stories from our home at the crossroads of the South. This week, why has a small town in central North Carolina become an internationally recognized hub for cricket?
Hasham Malik: Yeah, the international team, they were going in that indoor facility, sometimes we also go practice...
(AIRPLANE NOISE)
Anisa Khalifa: Sorry to cut you off, when you're saying something so nice.
Hasham Malik: I can repeat that.
Anisa Khalifa: If you’ve been to Raleigh-Durham International Airport, you’ve been to Morrisville. It's a small town in North Carolina's Triangle area with a population of about 31 thousand people. It’s also a tech hub — Lenovo is headquartered in Morrisville, IBM has a big campus here. A lot of people immigrate here for tech — some for the engineering schools nearby; some for the jobs. 46% of residents are Asian, more than any other racial group. Most have roots in South Asia… where cricket is life.
I've grown up seeing South Asians in the diaspora playing cricket in local fields and baseball diamonds all across North America. But I didn't know that I had a pro-level cricket ground so close to me — until some friends attended the inaugural Major League Cricket tournament last summer.
(SOUNDBITE FROM NEWS BROADCAST)
Unidentified Anchor: This league uses the more modern version of cricket called T20, where a game lasts about 3 hours. And unlike previous attempts at organized American cricket, Major League Cricket will feature many of the very best players in the world.
Anisa Khalifa: With the Men's T20 World Cup approaching, I had to find out how this happened in Morrisville of all places. My first clue about how deeply tied it is to the large South Asian community here? Turns out a family friend is the captain of the local cricket club, the Morrisville Warriors.
Hasham Malik: My name is Hasham Malik. I've been in North Carolina for past 12 years, moved here from, um, San Jose, California in 2011.
Anisa Khalifa: I met up with him last month at Church Street Park, which is located at 5800 Cricket Pitch Way. There are tennis courts and a playground, but the main attraction is the cricket ground. It's green, beautifully manicured, surrounded by shining bleachers.
Hasham Malik: This ground is so accessible. Half of the, uh, seating area is like grassland, like you're sitting in South Africa or New Zealand, right? You're really close to the boundary. You can take autographs from the players.
Anisa Khalifa: It's also about 5 minutes from the airport, so we had to pause frequently as airplanes passed overhead.
Hasham Malik: Ah, I forgot about it. I used to live right under the flying path. So, the first year was tough, then we got used to it.
Anisa Khalifa: Hasham grew up in Lahore, Pakistan. That's also where my dad is from — I know the city's cricket fever well.
Hasham Malik: Being from, originally from Pakistan, um, cricket is in our blood.
Anisa Khalifa: While Hasham has loved cricket all his life, it's been an especially important part of making North Carolina home.
Hasham Malik: North Carolina is not a tourist spot, right? Mountains, two and a half hours drive. Beach, two and a half hour drive, right? But locally it's just kind of mellow, right? So cricket was a great avenue to explore, found a team, been playing cricket for now more than 12 years.
Anisa Khalifa: Okay so I will admit, I had a similar thought when I moved here from a much bigger city. But for Hasham, cricket wasn't just a way to fill his weekends — it helped him get to know the local South Asian community.
Hasham Malik: I think any sport, it brings people together, right? In our team, in my team, Morrisville Warriors Cricket Club, we have players from about four or five different countries, right? So that becomes a salad bowl where everyone holds their identity, but we get to enjoy each, uh, and every one's good culture, uh, and we establish good friendships. In addition, we hold back connection to our roots.
Anisa Khalifa: Hasham has seen the local cricket scene grow a lot in his time playing in North Carolina.
Hasham Malik: The league has done a great job adding and securing a lot of additional cricket fields.
Anisa Khalifa: The league he's talking about here is the Triangle Cricket League, which is the primary cricket nonprofit in the area.
Hasham Malik: Some of my friends, they've been playing, um, here, uh, in the Triangle Cricket League since 2004. Um, and they used to tell me that they traveled to Virginia during that time to play, again, because there were not many cricket grounds available locally.
Anisa Khalifa: So cricket had been growing organically, along with the South Asian community here. But they didn't have anywhere to play. For the story of how that changed, Hasham told me the man to speak to is Babar Baig. He joined us at Church Street Park.
Babar Baig: Assalamualaikum. .
Anisa Khalifa: Assalamualaikum. Nice to meet you.
Hasham Malik: Anisa, Babar. Ex President.
Babar Baig: Thank you.
Anisa Khalifa: Thank you for taking the time out.
Anisa Khalifa: Babar is the former president of the Triangle Cricket League.
Babar Baig: Uh and the local league, we've been part of this community for 13, 14 years… ah there we go. Another plane.
Anisa Khalifa: Back in 2014, the town was building a baseball field here. The community successfully pushed for them to build a cricket ground instead. Over the years, the TCL has worked hard to make this a professional level pitch.
But to truly do that, you need to build a playing surface with a specific type of clay dirt. There's something about how it helps the ball bounce on the turf. I know all about this because my cousin in Pakistan is training to become a pro player, and he went through a whole process last year importing this particular type of clay to make a practice pitch in his backyard. The local community here had to do the same thing for Church Street Park. The dirt in this part of North Carolina is basically all clay, but it's red — the wrong kind. For cricket, you need something unique.
Babar Baig: It's a black clay. It's a special kind of clay. You need that, uh, for consistency and grass to evenly grow and have a root, deeply rooted grass.
Anisa Khalifa: They had an Australian specialist oversee the installation, but the actual laying out of the dirt was done by a small army of local volunteers.
Babar Baig: Hundreds of volunteers came together to build that square, basically. So there were like five, maybe thousand bags of, you know, um, five pound to 10 pounds each
Anisa Khalifa: Of this black clay.
Babar Baig: Of black clay. So you had to open all those bags and dump it on a, you know, so it was fun.
Anisa Khalifa: All this hard work has paid off. In 2018, the T20 World Cup qualifiers were held here. And last year, Major League Cricket launched in the US. America finally had a professional cricket league. And the inaugural tournament was held in Morrisville. A sold-out crowd of over 6 thousand filled up its brand-new bleachers every night.
(SOUNDBITE OF MAJOR LEAGUE CRICKET BROADCAST)
Unidentified Announcer: Excellent! Just out of this world! Excellent! Glenn Phillips! Ah, that is unbelievable!
Anisa Khalifa: These games are a big draw. Cricket stars from around the world come to play in Major League Cricket. And right now, the town is gearing up for this summer's tournament.
Babar Baig: And back there, there's a couple buildings, those are going to be pavilions and team dugouts for teams to sit there and stuff. So they'll be ready by June, right before Major League starts this year.
Anisa Khalifa: As we looked out at the facility, I asked Babar the question that's been on my mind since the first time I heard about Church Street Park: Why Morrisville? He told me its success is mostly due to grassroots support from the local community and the growth of the Triangle Cricket League. The TCL now has more than 4000 members from all over the state.
Babar Baig: So because of that league and I think, the amount of kids actually we have here, uh, that really helped put this on a map, this area. And I think people noticed because of the organization, the way town and the league work hand in hand.
Anisa Khalifa: So over the years, South Asian families came to Morrisville, maybe because of the great schools, maybe for the tech jobs. The point is, they ended up here, and they wanted a place to play cricket. A place to teach their kids how to play the sport of their mother country. And before long there were enough people to lobby to make it official. Morrisville was one of two locations in the country that hosted American Major League Cricket last year. And now… the pipe dream is to have big-time international matches here. And increasingly, it doesn’t seem like much of a stretch. More on that after the break.
My gateway to cricket was the Indian movie Lagaan. It tells the story of how cricket was originally a British sport, brought to India by colonizers. In the movie, local Indian villagers challenge British soldiers at their own game. If the Indians win, they’ll be forgiven three years of colonial taxes. Spoiler alert: It’s basically the best underdog sports story of all time.
(SOUNDBITE FROM LAGAAN)
British Colonel: He's done it, by George!
Anisa Khalifa: Now, Cricket is arriving in another former colony of Britain… on a cricket ground near the airport in Morrisville, North Carolina. This particular American cricket pitch is basically in the middle of its own sports movie. The local league wants it to be the site of a major international tournament. That hasn't happened yet, but they did get to have an elite team of world champions playing on local soil.
(SOUNDBITE FROM NEWS BROADCAST)
Unidentified Anchor: Cricket fans are in Morrisville enjoying a very special opportunity this week.
Unidentified Anchor: So the town is hosting the Sri Lankan cricket team, practicing as they prepare for the Cricket World Cup.
Anisa Khalifa: On a hot day in May, a couple of weeks before the T20 World Cup started, I got a chance to see them practicing. Now, this is a big deal. Sri Lanka are two time world cup champions. On the sidelines, the Mayor Pro Tem of Morrisville, Satish Garimella was just happy to be there. When I met him, he beamed with excitement about this opportunity to host a world-class team.
Satish Garimella: It's a dream come true, I would say.
Anisa Khalifa: Satish is Indian American. The game is a lifelong passion for him. And he knows what it means to have the Sri Lankan team come and practice on his home field.
Satish Garimella: It's a very big deal, and it's important in many respects. One, it's a pride that we are able to host. It's a pride for the local community that we are getting. It's a pride for the Sri Lankan community. They are able to see their national team here. Otherwise, it's, you know, you can't meet their team. I can't meet Team India. You know, there's more security than, you know, anyone else. And the last one, the most important thing is, they are helping and encouraging the kids here how to play.
Anisa Khalifa: The Sri Lankan team even had practice games with the local players, which . Satish says is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Satish Garimella: That is like, you know, money cannot buy that kind of a thing. So that experience for the kids is just priceless.
Anisa Khalifa: Satish has been involved in supporting cricket in Morrisville for years. He told me that this is the first town in America to build and maintain their own cricket ground. That’s not a small or inexpensive feat. So far, the town has invested about 4.5 million dollars in Church Street Park. Along with other funding from cricket organizations, a total of about 8 million dollars has gone into improving the ground.
And while that infrastructure has attracted big tournaments, it’s also helped the region develop young players. Morrisville is the home of quite a few cricket stars, men and women. Several represent Team USA. I got a chance to talk to a local player who was on the USA Under-19 team. The day I met Babar and Hasham, who first showed me around Church Street Park, they took me over to the practice fields down the street. This is where I met Abhiram Bolisetty, or Abhi.
Hi.
Abhiram Bolisetty: Hi, Nice to meet you. Abhi.
Anisa Khalifa: My name is Anisa. Nice to meet you. Abhi grew up playing cricket in Morrisville. His interest in the sport was sparked when he was 7, and India won the 2011 world cup.
Abhiram Bolisetty: Um, my parents would have it on the TV because they're from India. So they just would wake up at like, crazy times of the day to watch the game. So I woke up with them, watched the games and that's how it kind of started.
Anisa Khalifa: Along with two of the friends he'd grown up playing with, Abhi was selected for the 2022 USA under-19 men's team. But he didn't actually get to play — the World Cup was canceled because of COVID. But he said it was still a great feeling to be picked, and to know that so many players are being recruited from his hometown.
Abhiram Bolisetty: Yeah, like, 100%, really great feeling. And it was good that we had someone make it the cycle before, we had someone make it in my cycle, and we had someone make it the next cycle. So the last 3 cycles, we've produced an under-19 player, at least one.
Anisa Khalifa: These days Abhi is busy at UNC-Chapel Hill, studying business and data science. He still plays cricket when he can. But he doesn't have the facilities at his school that are available for sports like football or basketball. And cricket players don't have an NCAA program to provide them a launching pad to pro sports.
Abhiram Bolisetty: I mean, that's a huge reason, I think, if cricket kind of provided that same opportunity, we would see so many more people play the sport.
Anisa Khalifa: Even though he doesn’t have access to that college pipeline, Abhi still has professional aspirations. Seeing how cricket is taking off in the US motivates him. And that's something he never could have imagined growing up.
Abhiram Bolisetty: If someone told me back in 2018, like 2019, that's only 4, 5 years before all this happened, that we were going to have a pro league and a World Cup being hosted here, I would have, I would have laughed at 'em. I would have been like, you're, you're joking, there's no way that would happen. And like, I think it's just a really good sign for like, the future of cricket in this country. So nah, it's awesome to see that.
Anisa Khalifa: I guess maybe this isn't a question that you want to answer on tape, but like, if the U.S. is playing India, who are you rooting for?
Abhiram Bolisetty: Oh, USA. 100%. Are you kidding me? You can put that on tape. You can put that on tape. It's not even a question. No way.
Anisa Khalifa: Hasham, the captain of the Morrisville Warriors who grew up in Pakistan, feels a little differently.
Hasham Malik: I'll still support Pakistan versus USA when they play each other.
Abhiram Bolisetty: I'm going to let Hasham Bhai know that we're going to, we're going to come for them. We're coming for them.
Anisa Khalifa: And come for them they did — just a few days after this conversation, Team USA beat Pakistan in the most shocking upset in the history of the sport.
(SOUNDBITE FROM SPORTS COMMENTARY)
Unidentified Announcer: The red white and blue of the USA has overcome the 2022 finalists! The stars and stripes are flying high and proudly on Dallas, Texas!
Anisa Khalifa: Here in Morrisville, the next generation of cricket stars is on their way to following in team USA's footsteps. Across the parking lot from where I chatted with Abhi, a field full of children played a practice game. I got a chance to talk to their coach, who moved to Morrisville in February — specifically for cricket.
Philip Service: My name is Philip Service, I'm currently the head coach for Triangle Cricket League.
Anisa Khalifa: Philip is originally from Jamaica, and has decades of experience coaching cricket at nearly every level. I asked him what it was like to go from a place where cricket is an institution… to Morrisville.
Here, where it's like, basically… it's kind of in its baby stages, right?
Philip Service: Well, I tell you what, it's almost an institution here. If you were to judge by the love and the passion of the population here, it's just a matter of time before cricket becomes a day to day sport, a day to day language in the U.S. I know we have to compete with traditional sport, but trust me, the love for this game and the beauty of this game also, despite its length.
Anisa Khalifa: Well, my family is from Pakistan, so I know all about that.
Philip Service: Despite its length, right?
Anisa Khalifa: Philip has traveled all over the world playing and coaching this game. But he says no matter where you go, from the cricket grounds of Lahore, Pakistan to the fields of Morrisville, North Carolina — there's no other game like cricket.
Philip Service: Well, uh, what I'll tell you is that, I'm fortunate my father introduced me to this game many, many years ago. And the love for it has brought me here. It is, it is a unique game. I have always said that it's a game that can be so boring that you will fall asleep. But it's also a game that will give you a heart attack in a minute.
Anisa Khalifa: This episode of the Broadside was produced by me, Anisa Khalifa with Charlie Shelton-Ormond and Jerad Walker. It was edited by Julia Longoria and Jerad Walker. Our executive producer is Wilson Sayre.
Special thanks to my cousin, Ryaed Khaqan Najeeb, who is currently pursuing his dreams of playing professional cricket in Pakistan, and taught me much of what I know about the game. The Broadside is a production of WUNC–North Carolina Public Radio, and is part of the NPR network. You can email us at broadside@wunc.org. If you enjoyed the show, leave us a rating, a review, or share it with a friend!
I’m Anisa Khalifa. Thanks for listening, y'all. We'll be back next week.