Cricket league gets underway with season tournament

Written By Brian Lockhart

After hosting an exhibition of the sport last fall, the Shelburne Cricket Club is now ready to start playing regular games and will host a tournament style league beginning on July 21.

The Club will play their games at KTH Park in Shelburne.

The exhibition game brought out a handful of players and their supporters but over the winter the Club has signed on a bunch of new players so they can now field two teams.

The teams, the Gladiators and the Knights will battle it out in the Shelburne Cricket Club Best of 7 Series 2021.

Alternating between practice games on Wednesday and tournament games on Sunday, the two squads will meet every week through to September 5.

Almost all of the players involved are from Shelburne with two players coming from Orangeville and one from Grand Valley.

“To start we had only seven players, now we have 20,” explained Club executive member, Ahsen Siddiqui. “We will be starting the season and having a closing game with an award ceremony. The Club is hoping to attract more player so we can have more players and have a bigger league. The interest is very high, and were getting more interest from people on our Facebook page asking how they can register.”

The Club is accepting players from 12 years of age and up, and it is open to all genders.

Mr. Siddiqui said they've had some brand-new players try the sport and in a very short time were able to really get a grasp of it and learn some needed skills.

“This will be a best-of-seven season,” he explained. “We'll play seven matches with each other and whoever wins most of the games will be the champion of the 2021 season. We'll have a proper ceremony at the end of the season.”

Cricket is unusual because depending on the format games can take a long time to play.

The League is using a format that will allow them to finish matches within a certain time frame on the field.

“We'll be playing with a leather ball,” Mr. Siddiqui said. “Normally we would play with a standard white ball, but we'll be playing with the leather ball as we don't really have a proper pitch.”

The Club is working with the town to try to have a proper cricket pitch built at a local field. KTH Park works fine for the time being but is not set up as a proper pitch.

If you are interested in playing cricket and would like to learn more, you can reach out to the Shelburne Cricket Club through their Facebook page, or contact Mr. Siddiqui directly at 416-823-6846.