Growing Up Cricket

In response to one of my earlier posts, friend Betty took exception to my description of Farida as "ecumenical."

Sorry but I have to take exception to her exception. I'm proud to proclaim that Farida and Nas were brought up with a very wide spectrum of acquaintances from all sides of the planet. For much of that we have cricket to thank.


Cricket is the second-most popular sport in the world, after football (soccer), and is played anywhere in the world where the British had influence. I guess they had influence here in the U. S., too, but cricket hasn't caught on in a huge way here. But among the U.K. expats stateside it has quite a following.

During their younger years, Farida and Nasreen spent many a Sunday afternoon out at the Griffith Park equestrian area, which transformed itself into a cricket pitch for the day. The sport enjoys a rather illustrious history in the Los Angeles region, with actor British C Aubrey Smith taking the lead in establishing the sport in the area. If you've ever seen the old George Burns movie, "Oh, God," much of it was filmed at the equestrian center and in the neighborhood. Besides being a pretty cute movie with George playing God, I always enjoyed observing the places we used to hang out.

Unfortunately the Griffith Park site is no more, at least as a cricket venue. The fields were moved out to another San Fernando Valley location, called the Leo Magnus Cricket Complex, after one of Abid's Jamaican teammates who, besides being a great cricketer, spent a lot of his later years introducing the game to disadvantaged men in south central Los Angeles.

Although British accents abound, Aussie, West Indian and southeast Asia accents are commonplace, too, so Farida and Nas grew up well-schooled in foreign cultures (not to mention their father's Pakistani roots). Believe it or not, Ms. Betty, there was even a Jew or two or three.

Cricket bears a slight resemblance to baseball in that it's played with bats and balls, but there the resemblance ends. And if you thought baseball boring (sorry, Frank, Deb and Laurie--there are those out there who are not the passionate fans you are), you ain't seen nothing till you've endured a cricket match. A short game lasts a full day. Test matches can drag on for five days. Luckily ours were "only" of the one-day variety.

Abid is such an avid cricketer that he has played all over the world--Mexico, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, China, British Columbia and probably many others that I don't know about, both for the United States Cricket Team as well as the Golden Oldies, made up of well-seasoned gentlemen who still have a love of swinging the bat and bowling the ball. On one occasion, which shall be chronicled in an upcoming post, one of the gentlemen actually made his final appearance on a Mexico City pitch.

To his great credit, Abid to this day continues to participate in cricket activities, even coaching youth games in Southern California.