On one ground, there was Red Rockets captain
and Canada national team member Rabbjyot
Rajput fiercely leading a warm up routine for her
team. In another, Purple Panthers coach Monali Patel
eagerly watched bowlers and fielders execute her
plans. Kids who came to watch were both spectators
and enthusiastic participants in their own little game
on the sidelines. All the while, Cricket Canada board
member and former women’s national team member
Durriya Shabbir watched a dream and vision become
a reality.
History was made at the Emancipation Park Grounds
(formerly Dixie 407 Sports Park) in Brampton, Ontario
as the Green Guardians won the first-ever Canadian
National Under-19 Girls Cricket Tournament. They
defeated the Red Rockets by 33 runs in the final and
won all five of the matches they played.
The action featured five teams (Panthers, Guardians,
Rockets, Blue Blazers, Yellow Hawks) over the course
of three days from July 17th to 19th and was truly a
sight to behold. Talented girls from all over the country
coming together in Ontario, courtesy Cricket Canada,
to further enhance and showcase their skills.
“This is really well set up for all the girls here,” Rabbjyot Rajput
said. “We have many talented girls from across Canada and
having this tournament is a great step for women’s cricket to
grow in Canada.
“It’s great because we get to see different talents. Not just from
Ontario or B.C. or Alberta, having different players from different
cities and provinces come together is great because you get
to know others better and see different types of batting and
bowling that you wouldn’t otherwise.”
Rajput was the tournament’s leading wicket-taker with nine
wickets in five innings at a mind boggling economy rate of 1.80.
Rajput had stunning figures of 4-1-4-4 against the Yellow Hawks.
She also finished as the tournament’s third-highest run scorer
with 132 runs in five innings.
This tournament is about letting young girls know there is a path
for them to pursue and it’s one that won’t leave them behind
unlike years past. For far too long, the process has mostly been
about immigrants who come into the country familiar with the
sport and continue to play. There are also those who couldn’t
get in the team for the countries they originated from and so
extend their pursuit to Canada. This crop is generally older and
so it becomes a cycle of short term solutions.
“We’ve been planning and thinking along these lines for the last
couple of years, especially when the ICC started the U-19 World
Cup for the girls,” Shabbir said. “That’s created a pathway for
girls from North America and all over the world to play in that
tournament.
“That was one element, the other was that we wanted to
increase our base for the senior team. The only way to get to
that was to get the younger kids to play in a tournament for
them. Oftentimes, we find that the younger kids are a little
intimidated trying to play with the senior women and so they
hold back until they grow up and feel ‘old enough’ to compete.
With that gap, they pursue other avenues, university happens,
and they disappear. We lose that crop.
”Peter Couch has managed a youth program for Meraloma
cricket club in Vancouver, B.C. for the past nine years after
playing for many years as a first-generation Canadian to Kiwi
parents. His daughter, Maren, has grown up competing mostly
with and against boys and so it’s all the more impressive that
she’s stuck it out with the sport and rewarding that she has the
opportunity to play with girls at an event like this.
“I think this is a gigantic moment for young women, coming here
and playing the game,” Couch said. “It essentially establishes a
pathway to answer ‘What do I do? Where can I go?’ and that’s
exactly what this week is doing.
”Beyond a pathway, Couch’s time in Brampton for the
tournament was a validating one in encouraging his daughter
to take up the sport because she was able to see how large the
participation is across Canada.
“It’s incredibly important so they understand the sport is
countrywide, from coast to coast,” Couch said. “We’re from
Vancouver and Maren has teammates who are from the East
coast and everywhere in between – Manitoba, the Prairies,
Ontario, you name it. The breadth, the participation, it’s great.”
Blue Blazers opening batter Inderpreet Kaur finished the
tournament with the most runs, tallying 267 in five innings at an
average of 89.00 and strike rate of 99.63. Her best performance
came against the Purple Panthers, when she thumped 81 runs
off 67 balls with seven fours.
Purple Panthers’ Saachi Dhadwal finished as the second-leading
run scorer with 193 runs from five innings at an average of 48.25
and a blistering strike rate of 137.86. Her standout innings was a
thrilling 76 off 51 with eight fours and two sixes against the Blue
Blazers.
Namrit Dhillon and Zayneb Fazil, both of the Green Guardians,
took seven wickets each. Diya Trivedi, who has represented Canada, captained the
Panthers and scored 51 runs while taking four wickets. Her father
and grandfather grew up playing cricket and that’s where her
passion stems from. Now, Trivedi is a young leader who is helping
blaze a trail in Newfoundland
“Cricket in Newfoundland is getting better day-by-day as we
get more teams involved,” Diya Trivedi said. “More and more
people are coming and getting to know the sport. We have
quite a few local people who are interested in playing as well as
international students. It’s really building in structure.”
A man who knows all about structure is Praim Persaud, President
of the Cricket Council of Ontario, and had a big role to play
in putting this tournament together. Watching all the matches
from start to finish, Persaud’s enthusiasm to see women’s cricket
grow and succeed is palpable. He sees how gaining
these experiences will help the girls with the more
intricate aspects of technique, field placement, and
teamwork. He also sees the way this tournament has
served as a bolt of energy for all those participants
and knows that it’s momentum that needs to be built
upon.
“For our girls and our Under-19 initiative, I think this is
good but we need to do more,” Persaud said. “This
is a discovery of talent and we now see there is that
talent. We now need to find more of it and cultivate it
by holding their interest beyond just one event.”
The past few days in Brampton have been nothing short
of a landmark event. There was some great cricket on
display as well as some moments to learn from. That’s
exactly what a tournament like this is supposed to do,
provide a platform for young girls who belong to show
that they do and for the ones who are striving to get to
that level to understand and learn what it takes.
You have to start somewhere and this was a needed
start.