Officer H. Rehman of the Manteca Police Department was carried off the field following Thursday morning’s cricket exhibition match.

This was part of a hero celebration led by his fellow officers along with Police Chief Steve Schluer, recognizing Rehman’s stellar effort as a bowler – that’s a player who propels the ball towards the wicket as defended by the batter – as local police rolled to a 55-35 victory over the firefighters at Doxey Park.

Rehman had never played cricket. Yet he masterfully tossed the final outs to help seal the win for his team. “I watched it before on video,” said Rehman.

Doxey Park is the location of the first cricket field in the City of Manteca. Councilman Mike Morowit, for one, is proud to have it in his district.

The cricket field was officially dedicated in July.

According to Mohammed Ali of the Manteca cricket club – the team is known as the Dolphins, who play teams in the Bay Area and Central Valley as part of the Golden State Cricket Association – the rules of the exhibition game were streamlined for various reasons including time constraints.

The bats are flat-fronted willow-wood blade and, for players of both squads, can be awkward swinging it given that most are baseball / softball players.

“The game (of cricket) is different but it was still a good time,” said fire engineer Wes Chamberlain.

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played with two teams of 11 players on an elliptical field with long radius perpendicular to batters.

At the center is a 22-yard-long pitch with a wicket, which is a set of three wooden stumps sited at each end – Rehman was able to hit the wicket, which must be defended by the batter, to register an out late in the match.

Runs are scored in a variety of ways, with the most common being by hitting the ball and running between the wickets while still holding the bat.

Boundary markers created the perimeter of the playing field. The most runs by a batter was a termed a ‘sixer,’ as scored when the ball is hit over the boundary – a batted ball that touches the ground before flying over the boundary accounts for four points.

Outs were registered in this game as “eighth over,” said Mayor Gary Singh, who did some of the play-by-play announcing during the match.

He believes that cricket will continue to grow in popularity. “Right now, cricket is like soccer was in the ‘80s,” Singh said.

He added that cricket is the No. 2 participatory sport in the world behind soccer. What’s more, the sport of cricket will make its debut in the 2028 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

Following the exhibition game, City Manager Toni Lungren presented the championship trophy to Schluer and his police department.

Ali added that police practiced two days with his cricket club and “it showed,” he said.

Firefighters were not as fortunate. They had to learn the sport just prior to the match.

Both sides had fun learning a new sport.