New York, NY —
The Cricket World Cup is down to its final four. In the U.S, cricket is still obscure, and the Cup has only made news for a tragic incident early on. But for many expatriates and immigrants in New York, cricket is a way of life, and a connection to each other and the places they call home. WNYC’s Siddhartha Mitter travels from the West Village to Richmond Hill, Queens to find New York's hometown cricket fans.
REPORTER: 8 Mile Creek is an Australian bar on Mulberry Street in Manhattan. On Easter Sunday, expats from all over the former British Empire are gathered here to celebrate the secular religion of cricket. They’re watching Australia, the defending champion, dominate England, where cricket was invented.
INDIAN FAN: I love cricket! I grew up with cricket. Life comes to a standstill in India when there’s cricket.Once India got knocked out it took me a while to recover from the trauma of it, but I got over it.
NEW ZEALAND FAN: Any New Zealander would secretely like to see England win. You know Australia are New Zealand’s rivals.
SRI LANKAN FAN: I was disappointed about South Africa – Sri Lanka, it was so close…
REPORTER: Australia wins the match. The English are fatalistic about their team’s defeat…
ENGLISH FAN: We’ve been outclassed, not a chance… The Australians are a far better side…
REPORTER: And the Aussies brag.
AUSTRALIAN FAN: It was always inevitable, mate! History shows we always win.
REPORTER: Sixteen teams compete at the Cricket World Cup, which is held every four years. This year’s competition has been marred by some strange events. Two of the big favorites, India and Pakistan, didn’t make the second round. The day after Pakistan went out, its coach, an Englishman named Bob Woolmer, was found dead. That apparent murder is still unsolved. But New York’s cricket fans are still enthusiastic about the rest of the tournament.
MOHAMMED: Welcome to Singh’s Roti Shop and Bar, where an exciting game of cricket is going on right now, West Indies are playing South Africa, hoping for a West Indies win so let’s see what’s going on…
REPORTER: Because the Caribbean nations are small, they have a regional cricket team, the West Indies. That’s the host team for the tournament this year. The West Indies is also the home team on Liberty Avenue in Richmond Hill, Queens. This is the heart of New York’s Indo-Caribbean community… Late morning sunshine splashes in through the windows of Singh’s Roti Shop at 132nd and Liberty. Behind the counter, lunch is ready: all kinds of chicken and vegetable curries, rice dishes and the fried bread and chick pea snack called doubles. It’s a Tuesday, but close to a hundred people are sitting at tables watching their team on the big-screen TV. Ashmin Mohamed is working the bar.
MOHAMMED: So far it’s going South Africa… Looking that way, but we are hoping and keeping our fingers crossed so that West Indies can pull out a victory today. … Well we just got a wicket, hopefully that will be the turning point of the game!!!
REPORTER: It’s not looking good. Right now the West Indies team is bowling – like pitching in baseball – and South Africa is batting for a high score. In the afternoon, the West Indies will have to exceed that score to win. No one seems to think this is likely.
SINGH: A very tall order, because their batting for the last three games has been a disaster.
REPORTER: That’s Sam Singh – no relation to the shop’s owners, just one of the many connoisseurs watching the match. He is a distinguished looking man, about 60, in blue trousers and a red V-neck sweater, with an elegant shock of white hair.
SINGH: I’m a cricket nut. I’m also a good golfer, but I used to play cricket in my times in Trinidad, I was one of the best cricketers in the island at that time.
REPORTER: Singh has lived in the U.S. for 37 years: in Florida, Texas, and now Queens. He works as a mortgage officer. Like many people in the neighborhood, he flew back to the Caribbean to catch a game in person. Now he’s made the roti shop his headquarters for the rest of the tournament.
SINGH: The crowd that we have here in Singh’s Roti Shop, it’s a mix come from all over the Caribbean, Jamaica, Barbados, St Kitts, Nevis, St Lucia. We also have Indians from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, it’s really a world combination of cricket enthusiasts.
REPORTER: Watching cricket is an all-day commitment. And this is actually the short form of the game: purists swear by the long version, where a match can last five days. The regulars at Singh’s find ways to make the time to watch the matches.
BURTON: Like this gentleman that I met here, he’s a retired gentleman, one guy who is somewhere over there, he works at night, and I think the guy behind me, he works around his schedule: I’m here at 9:30 and he shows up more around noon.
REPORTER: Richard Burton lives in Staten Island and began watching the World Cup in Manhattan with the expat crowd, before finding his way to Liberty Avenue.
BURTON: What I’ve really enjoyed is just the atmosphere, being around other West Indians, the food, and hearing the language, the tongue, hearing expressions I have not heard in a long time, meeting new people like this gentleman… Win or lose, what I’ll remember the most is the atmosphere here in Singh’s.
REPORTER: By the end of the day there’s no miracle: the West Indies lose the match. But as the saying goes, cricket is a gentlemen’s game. Everyone is gracious in defeat. They all say they’ll be back to watch the rest of the tournament. Besides, it’s springtime, and in parks around the boroughs, New York’s own cricket leagues are revving up for their season.