Cupertino Rotary Celebrates Cricket

Cupertino Rotary president Bev Lenihan made things official with a slice of the specially made Cricket cake—the sport of Cricket had officially made its way into the city of Cupertino.

After a visit from several speakers discussing the sport, club members headed out to the park to take part in a fun afternoon of Cricket action on a sun soaked Wednesday afternoon in Cupertino.

Rotary board members voted to adopt Cricket as a club sponsored program shortly after the presentations concluded, kicking off the newly minted Cupertino Rotary Cricket Fellowship.

The program sponsored by the club will budget accordingly to help grow the game in the community.  One of the proposed plans is to sponsor a youth Cricket tournament that would take place later on this year.

Mahesh Nihalani was one of the speakers at the local event that hosted between 75-80 people for a lunch, cake and some outdoor play on the lawn.

“Cricket is a very popular sport all over the world,” Nihalani said. “It was a great event to bring lots of people in the community together and to educate them about the game.”

Ireland, Fiji, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India and New Zealand are just a few of the countries across the World that are members of the International Fellowship of Cricket Rotarians, according to Nihalani.

Another speaker was Hernant Buch, founder of the California Cricket Academy. Buch spoke about the importance of getting Cricket into the United States. One of the goals of the California Academy is to get high schools to offer Cricket as a sport.

Jim Walker, a former District Governor of the Rotary District, also took part in the festivities and was one of the members that voted to add Cricket as a sponsored club activity.

“I’m one of those guys that grew up with baseball, basketball and football so having someone there that has played the game educate me about Cricket was a lot of fun,” Walker said. “It was great to see people playing the game. It was good exposure for the game getting people to hear about the sport and go out and give it a try.”

Several Rotarians came through with some nice swings during the practice at Memorial Park. More events of this nature are planned in the future as the club aims to help grow the sports even more in the community.