“In India, you see people play tennis ball cricket, which is the lighter variant of leather ball cricket, practically everywhere,” says Ravi Patel, first-year PhD candidate at the Department of Applied Physics. “Instead of a hard leather ball, the game is played with a more lightweight ball, you play it indoors, and you don’t need more than six people.” This variant was played in the Student Sports Centre (SSC) last weekend and attracted some twenty people. Master’s students Jurjen Leer and Patel are the driving force behind the initiative to start a cricket team at TU/e.

Given the number of TU/e students and PhD candidates from India and Pakistan, where cricket is immensely popular, that shouldn’t be a problem, they believe. “And once we’re finished with all the formalities we need to go through in the coming months before we can officially start with cricket at TU/e, everyone is welcome of course,” Patel says. “We will actively search for members everywhere at the university. Jurjen and I expect to eventually get about fifty people to join us.”

Mystery

Patel and Leer are aware of the fact that cricket - the most popular sport worldwide after soccer - is sometimes frowned upon in the Netherlands. “The sport is entirely new to me as well,” says Leer, who came into contact with Patel during lunch meetings and became enthusiastic about cricket and the idea of starting a club during their discussions about the sport. “When I first started playing this weekend, the game was interrupted sometimes for a discussion and I had no idea what they were talking about. It was also a mystery to me why people suddenly started to cheer enthusiastically in the middle of the game. But I expect to learn quickly. And that softer ball used during tennis ball cricket isn’t really that soft at all,” he says laughing.

Patel, who grew up with cricket, understands that the sport is regularly met with incomprehension, but ensures that the rules can be easily explained to beginners as well. He himself has been playing leather ball cricket, which might be called the original version of cricket, since his Master’s studies. He is a pitcher, or bowler as it is officially called, but he also wields the bat. The intention is that the new club will open its doors in March and that it will take part in the outdoor competition. According to Patel, a cricket field can be set up with thick ropes on one of the existing hockey or football fields. The Eindhoven student sport federation will help Leer and Patel establish the club, and the official approval will eventually be given during the general assembly. The SSC will provide the material, such as bats and wickets, and the protective gear.

Endurance

When asked what cricket is really about, the first-year PhD candidate from India answers: “Technique and skills of course, but certainly endurance as well, because the games we will be playing may take up to eight and a half hours a day. Field players need to be constantly alert as well. The ball won’t come your way that often, but when it does, you need to catch it ideally, or at least prevent it from leaving the delineated playing field, because otherwise your team will lose a lot of points. But the most important thing of course is that you function as a team, because everyone is dependent on the other, regardless of your position.”

Eindhoven already has two cricket clubs: the Eindhoven Cricket Club (ECC), founded in 1915, and the High Tech Campus Eindhoven Cricket Association (HTCECA) for the Dutch and expat community at the High Tech Campus, which was founded in March of this year. As far as Leer knows, his club will be the fifth university student cricket club in the Netherlands. The club still doesn’t have an official name at this point, but Leer and Patel are open to suggestions.

A second introduction day will take place in the SCC on Sunday 8 December for people who would also like to take part in a practice match. More information can be found on Facebook. Those who want to come into contact with Leer or Patel can send an email.