Cricket pitch coming to Bob Jones Park in Southlake
Parvez Malik’s five-year crusade to get a cricket pitch in Southlake has finally paid off.
Construction will start this month at Bob Jones Park and the Southlake Cricket Club could be playing on it in early 2016. The club has spent years raising funds for the project and just this month the City Council approved the last matching grant from the Southlake Park Development Corporation to pay the remaining costs.
"I think it’s extraordinary for the city of Southlake," Malik said. "Especially for the younger generations and the folks who are entrusted with teaching the sport to them."
It’s been a long road for Malik. In 2014, the club raised about $6,900 anticipating the cost to be around $13,800. The SPDC matched that and it went out for bids. No projects came back in that price range, though. The cricket club went back to raising money and came up with about $1,700 more, which the SPDC matched again this month.
A quote was finally received for $17,318 and Southlake hired the contractors. First, Manning Construction will pour the concrete base that will be the pitch. Then Southwest Greens will install the synthetic turf that covers the pitch.
Chris Tribble, community services director for the city of Southlake, said the pitch should be ready by the end of January, weather permitting.
"Members of our community have asked for a cricket pitch and the council helped staff work through the steps to make it happen," Tribble said. "We are looking forward to adding this amenity to our parks system."
That’s in addition to the various multi-purpose fields the city has built, including the flag football/lacrosse fields at North Park and the Texas Rangers Miracle League Field at Bicentennial Park.
Cricket is a British game but its popularity extends to all corners of the former British Empire.
"The growth of this game is phenomenal," Malik said. "All the colonies in the Indian Subcontinent and Australians, they’ve been playing for a long period of time and this game is finally getting into the American mainstream."
The field is elliptical shaped with a rectangular-shaped pitch in the center. It involves a batsman trying to hit a ball, then running between the popping creases as many times as he can. In the United States, the game evolved into baseball with a hitter trying to run to touch all the bases.
Cricket takes five to six hours to play. If that sounds long, that’s actually a shortened version. Some versions of cricket actually take three or four days to play. For Malik, a Pakistani immigrant, the game is addictive.
This story was originally published January 8, 2016 at 9:10 AM with the headline "Cricket pitch coming to Bob Jones Park in Southlake."