Cricket Club a Big Hit

International students launch group for bat-and-ball enthusiasts.

The club cricket team, founded by Ali Qureshi, left, and Rohaan Advani, practices on Lakeside Field. Photo by Michael Goss.

Having grown up in Pakistan, Weinberg College sophomore Ali Qureshi is a die-hard cricket fan. So when the economics and political science major arrived on campus in September 2015, the thing he missed most was cricket. It was a sentiment he shared with many of the other Indian and Pakistani international students whom he met on campus. When those two countries play, he says, “I’m sorry to say it because I love Tom Brady, but it’s bigger than the Super Bowl.”

Joined by about 12 others, Qureshi headed to Patten Gymnasium one night during winter quarter in 2016 for a pickup cricket game. They had only two pathetic-looking bats and a couple of punctured balls, but for a group that had been starved of their sporting passion for months, it didn’t matter. Less than a month later, there were three-dozen players.

After a three-month conversation with the administration about logistics, funding and advisers, the Northwestern Club Cricket team was established in fall 2016.

“We started out with 12 players, and now we have 35,” Qureshi says. “The best part is that while 25 of them are international students who grew up playing the game, the rest are Americans who had never touched a bat before coming to Northwestern. Now they’re just as much a part of the team as everybody else.”