Finding cricket in Central Park

Nobody:

Absolutely nobody:

Cricket people these days: But did you know the first-ever international cricket match was played between Canada and USA?

Let me now tell you some real trivia, shared with me by a friend who lives near Central Park in New York. The city’s iconic lungs was supposed to have a cricket pitch. It was there in the original plans too, but by the time the park was built, baseball had taken over as USA’s national sport.

My friend Nikhil Iyengar even saw the map that had a cricket pitch on it. He didn’t take pictures of it but the official New York City Parks and Rec website has confirmation. “As Central Park engineer-in-chief in its early days, Egbert Viele designed an early plan for Central Park that featured a cricket pitch in the southwestern portion of the park, one of only two open spaces in the layout,” says an article called “History of bat sports in Parks” on nycgovparks.org.

The plan was approved by the designers, who noted the usefulness of placing a cricket pitch there. “In 1865, proponents of the ‘national game’ of baseball complained that permits for the Central Park fields were hard to come by, as apparently preference was given to the “English game” of cricket,” the article says. This bit of half-buried New York history only adds to the fairly widely held belief that baseball did evolve from cricket. Another spot originally meant for cricket, North Meadow, ended up making way for lawn tennis.

Imagine if that cricket pitch had endured. Would we still be struggling to find a suitable surface to play World Cup matches in New York? It would also have been close to hotels. And the subway.

However, there is evidence that Central Park had a cricket field at some point. There still exists a spot in the Park called “East Field”, which is described on the plaque as a “former cricket field”. You won’t be able to find that plaque that easily this month because the sidewalk around the field is off-limits for construction work.

East Field is on the east side of the Park between 70th and 72nd street. If you enter through the main road from 5th Avenue, it’s a field on the left. It is longer than it is wide, and it’s lovely. Not all the fountains in the park are functional but the ones around here are. Currently it is being used as a space where dogs can run free. In a city where dogs seem to have all traces of personality trained out of them, it is good to see them frolicking off leash. Can’t think of a better use for a former cricket field.