While soccer is the king of the sports world, when it comes to an utterly loyal and sometimes massively rabid fan base, the sport of cricket follows in a close second with some countries revering it in an almost religious fashion. Despite its endearing popularity around the world, cricket in the United States has yet to regain the prominence it once held during America’s early post-colonial times.

One Sacramento State Rec Sports club intends to change some of that.

The Student Cricket Association of Sac State was founded in February 2006 by Akshat Srivastava, the current club president, and Umer Shaikh, club treasurer, for the purpose of bringing together cricket players from all over campus and spreading the knowledge and history of the sport.

For the unaware, cricket is a sport that originated in England that has a known history dating back to the 16th century, although there has been evidence that the game has been played for far longer than that. It has enjoyed immense popularity within its home country as well as all the other countries that were once a part of the Commonwealth, the most notable ones being Australia, India, Sri Lanka and New Zealand.

In a tiny side-bit of trivia, the United States was the host of the first international cricket match when it played against Canada on September 24, 1844, at the St. George’s Cricket Club Ground in New York. Perhaps in retaliation for this, England then went on to beat the United States at its national pastime at the first Baseball World Cup in 1938.

The game also sparked an international incident between England and Australia in 1932 after the Australian Board of Control for Cricket declared England’s body-line tactic unsportsmanlike, as that style of pitching requires the bowler to intentionally aim toward the batter. Offended by this, the British demanded a retraction of the statement and threatened a boycott of Australian goods. Australian Prime Minister Joseph Lyons had to ask the Australian Board of Control for Cricket to retract that statement with the understanding of economic hardships for the country had they not done so.

Soccer may have the distinction of causing the most riots of all sporting events, but it has never been the direct cause of a diplomatic incident.

Cricket is played with a ball and a bat between two teams of 11 players each. The main action of the play is between the pitcher and the batter, otherwise known as a bowler and a striker respectively, atop a flat strip of land that is 22 yards long and 10 feet wide, otherwise known as the pitch. On either end of the pitch are the wickets, a set of three wooden sticks embedded into the ground with two smaller pieces of wood called the bails that rest over the gaps between the stumps.

The pitch is set in the middle of an oval, grassy field and is made distinct from the rest of the play area by closely shorn grass that is quickly worn away into dirt as the game goes on. Apart from the fielding team’s bowler and wicket-keeper that stay inside the pitch, the other nine members of the team are distributed inside the oval according a pre-set strategy. The batting team positions its batter and his partner at the opposite wickets.

Unlike a baseball pitch, a cricket bowler needs to bounce the ball at least once for the pitch to be declared legal. The process of bowling is a very technical art which requires the bowler to be mindful of elbow positioning and arm extension as a bowler cannot fully extend the arm during a pitch.

The cricket ball is made out of solid cork wrapped with a string and covered with hard, treated leather. Cricket players have to wear protective gear such as helmets and gloves as the hardened ball can be propelled to incredible speeds when thrown by a bowler or struck by a cricket paddle. Strikers need to wear additional padding along the side facing the bowler since a poorly thrown ball can move erratically after the first bounce.

Runs are scored when a striker makes contact with the ball and begins his run. If the ball flies out of the oval without touching the ground, then the player automatically scores six points; the player scores four points if the ball simply rolls out of the oval. Runs are also scored if the striker and his partner can switch positions after a hit and ground their bats by touching the ground close to a wicket.

A striker can be called out in numerous ways, but the most common way is to have a live ball strike the wicket stumps and dislodge the bails. After 10 batters are out, the teams switch places and the inning is over.

There are 25 members involved with the cricket team this semester and 15 of them are dedicated members who are scheduled to play in all the club’s upcoming games. After a brief hiatus last semester, the cricket team came back with a full roster and in full force to play against its rivals across the Causeway on March 16 but lost to UC Davis by 39 runs.

Its next game will be a home game against UC Merced on April 13 at the Intramural Fields behind Yosemite Hall. The lack of an intercollegiate cricket league and cricket teams on campuses across California doesn’t discourage Srivastava, who said he’s also working on scheduling games with teams from UC Berkley and UC Irvine.

Justin Tejada can be reached at [email protected]