Manteca cricket players — who had been forced to travel to nearby cities or the Bay Area to access regulation fields with the required pitch — now can play in town.
The City of Manteca on Wednesday conducted a ribbon cutting for its first cricket field at Doxey Park next to George McParland School on Northgate Drive.
It was made possible by Councilman Mike Morowit earmarking part of the city’s federal COVID relief funds for the park that is located within the Area 4 district he represents.
Morowit made it clear the cricket field is for all of Manteca.
“We (the city and council members) have been getting a lot of requests in recent years for a cricket field,” Morowit noted.
The goal is to provide a well-rounded repertoire of recreation facilities that serve Manteca’s growing diverse community. The councilman said the city has 70 plus parks.
Use of the field is being handled through reservations with the city’s Recreation & Commodity Services Department.
There have already been reservations made for the field’s use.
The decision to locate a cricket field at Doxey Park drew some criticism from those who used the area that was converted for soccer games.
But given the fields weren’t reserved per se, the city was unaware the fields were being used on an ongoing basis by specific groups.
Soccer fields — and park areas for such use — are reserved at other municipal parks.
The dust up was reminiscent of what happened in the early 1990s.
The city started allowing soccer teams to use neighborhood parks that had baseball backstops. That created some friction as the baseball groups at the time felt the city wasn’t providing enough baseball fields for their use.
At the same time, soccer was just starting to gain in popularity.
The growing interest in soccer prompted the city back in the 1990s to drop plans to create baseball fields in the large storm basin and Woodward Park and instead use it for soccer
Cricket fields are growing in popularity among new residents throughout San Joaquin County.
There are two cricket fields in Lathrop — one at Mossdale Landing Park and the other at the Steam Academy at River islands.
Stockton, Mountain House, and Lodi also have cricket fields
There are also cricket fields in Milpitas, Sacramento, Richmond, Lorenzo Santa Clara, Bay Point and three in San Jose.
Almost all of the fields mentioned were placed in existing parks as communities responded to changing recreational interests.
Cricket is the world’s No. 2 participatory sport behind soccer.
In 2028, it will be part of the Olympics for the first time ever when Los Angeles hosts the 2028 Summer Games.
Cricket as a sport doesn’t enjoy the same popularity in America as it does elsewhere although it is growing.
The United States doesn’t even crack the Top 25 countries for the sport.
The sport is most popular in India followed by Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, Nepal, Trinidad and Tobago, South Africa, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Jamica, and Afghanistan.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
