HISTORY OF CRICKET IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

Cricket in the Pacific Northwest can be traced back to the late 1890's when cricket enjoyed significant popularity here. The attached photograph is from a cricket match in Portland from 1895. The growth of cricket in the northwest has been largely tied with the financial well-being of the economy of this area. Because with the growth came the immigrants from cricket playing countries.

After an earlier debut in the 1900s, cricket thereafter somewhat faded until the 50s, when there was a mini-revival. In Portland Ken Butler, now in his 70s, was the captian of Portland State University (PSU) then, and can still recount an instance in the 50s when they put a baseball pitcher into bowl, and he got the breakthrough they needed, beating Reed College yet once again. This probably makes Ken the senior most cricketer in the northwest. This mini revival led to the formation of Seattle Cricket Club (SCC) in 1958 (the oldest surviving club in the northwest).

In Portland, the 50s proved to be a flash in the pan, and cricket faded out again. In fact, none of the current cricket clubs in Portland Metro area were in existence before 1985, and owe their existence to the economic growth in the northwest in the early 1980s. With the continued influx of new residents from both the US and outside, cricket is also seeing a rapid growth.

The Pacific Northwest is growing, and so is cricket. The big success of NWCL attracted new players and generated interest by the media. NWCL has undertaken to promote cricket not only in the northwest, but also in the US. NWCL was given coverage in the local papers and also TV. In 1996, NWCL helped Weiden & Kennedy make Coke ads that were shown in the last World Cup. NWCL is also in contact with local schools for coaching possibilities.

The NWCL came into being through the efforts of Sajjad Rasheed, Raiyo Aspandiar, Srikanth Kambhatla, Jack Surendranath, Oliver Bangera, Winslow Fernando, and Jay Pathy. The founder clubs were Portland CC (then called Star CC), Beaverton CC, Seattle CC, WSUCC, and Microsoft CC. Later, other teams joined the league.