Dartmouth’s roots in American cricket tradition extend back to the late 1700s, when one of the earliest recorded games of cricket in the U.S. was believed to be played on the Green. Since then, faculty and students have routinely gathered for casual matches, forming an informal group in the 1990s. In the past couple of years, the Dartmouth College Cricket Club has enjoyed a considerable amount of growth and recognition as cricket’s popularity has increased on the East Coast.
When president Faizan Kanji ’15 joined the club in 2011, there were only three regular members. Kanji made it his mission to improve membership when appointed vice president in 2012.
“My main goals for the club were to rebuild it into the dominating force it once was and to just further promote cricket on campus,” he said.
The club now boasts around 15 to 18 regular members, many of whom travel with the team to matches. Secretary and outreach coordinator Angad Kapur ’16 said he has been pleased with the diversity of the club’s players, who come from a range of countries, including Pakistan, South Africa, Nepal and India.
This past fall, American College Cricket League, a national organization of cricket clubs, officially recognized the Dartmouth club as a member of its 13-team Northeast conference. The Big Green started its first season in the league with two losses against Boston University and Harvard University. However, the team still feels encouraged about its overall performance and the nature of these early losses. Against BU, the Big Green was missing half of it regular starters, which Kapur cites as a recurring issue for the team.
“We’re a small school and compared to a lot of our peers, we have a small international population,” he said. “It’s hard to make sure that we’re fielding our core starters at every match, and when we don’t, the less experienced players have to really step up, which is difficult.”
Despite its struggles with starting lineup continuity and a limited pool of experienced players, the underdog Big Green has put together strong performances against some of the premier clubs in the region. Dartmouth’s loss against the historically strong Harvard was a record-setting match that garnered the attention of the national organization and a mention on the league website’s homepage. Dartmouth gave up 265 runs in the Crimson’s 20 overs, but responded with 264 runs in its own 20 overs, falling just short of an incredible comeback.
“We were able to turn a potentially one-sided encounter against a much more experienced team into a thrilling and nail-biting showdown,” Khizar Hussain ’16 said, encouraged by the result.
The close match was the latest installment of a budding rivalry with Harvard. In the past year, the Big Green and the Crimson have met four times, splitting the matches. In one of the most memorable of these meetings last spring, Dartmouth upset Harvard, the then-defending American College Cricket champions, and gained the league’s attention and consideration for membership.
Dartmouth hopes to build on its recent successes in its upcoming match on Chase Field on May 24 against the top-ranked Massachusetts Institute of Technology club, the team’s first home match in over four years. The Big Green, ranked eighth out of the 13 teams in the conference, is still looking for the first win of the 2014 season.
The team expects a tough match, but has faith in its ability to compete, Kapur said.
“We have been competitive in all our matches and we’ve played against some of the strongest teams in the area,” he said.
The current season will continue through the fall term, with an undetermined number of games left to be played. The clubs in the conference schedule their own matches with other clubs with the goal of playing as many matches as possible before the season ends. At the end of the fall, the top clubs in the conference will be invited to play in a single-elimination bracket in which the winner advances to the national tournament. Although Dartmouth believes it can win a spot in the postseason, the immediate focus is on winning games. The most important goal is to get to .500, Kapur said.
“We’ve been improving a lot,” he said. “We have a good core of players, and we can really start to build around that.”
In addition to finding more regular starters, the team looks to develop beginners and new players. At each practice, the more experienced members take the time to teach the fundamentals to new members, some of whom have no background or knowledge of the game, aiming to nurture and spread an appreciation for cricket, Kanji said.
“After all,” he said, “cricket is the only sport in the world where we have a ‘tea break’ in the middle of a match and there are fielding positions called ‘silly points’ — how can this game not be fascinating?”
