The crack of a bat and cheers from athletes echoed throughout Kitchener’s RBJ Schlegel Park on Saturday, as cricket players took to the grounds to practice on the city’s fourth cricket pitch.
“Cricket is a game where it’s a thrill batting and strategic bowling,” said Giridhar Shouri, president of the Southern Ontario Cricket Association (SOCA). “It all unites together to bring the community together.”
It comes just days after the City of Kitchener announced they would be opening a new cricket ground at Kiwanis Park.
“We want to see more and more grounds in the future,” Shouri said. “I’d love to see in the next five years, we grow together and we play cricket together.”
The new outdoor cricket ground opened Friday. The full-size cricket pitch is Kitchener’s fourth cricket ground, including ones at RBJ Schlegel Park, Resurrection Park and Laurentian Park.
“It was a much needed addition to help with demand,” said Bob Cheyne, the City of Kitchener’s director of sport.
A cricket player trio tested out the ground for the first time on Saturday.
“We played at all the grounds and this is the best ground,” said Sumanth Dumpoju, organizer at Rampage Cricket Club
The City of Kitchener says the Kiwanis Park cricket ground will help meet the demand of the growing popularity of the sport.
Cricket is the fastest growing sport in Canada with nearly 40,000 players and over five million cricket fans, according to a 2022 Canadian survey.
“As Canada’s fastest growing community, and as an increasingly diverse community, Kitchener is committed to prioritizing its support for a more diverse sporting community as well and have engaged with local sports groups to understand and support their needs, today and in the future,” Mayor Berry Vrbanovic said in a news release.
Cheyne said the Southern Ontario Cricket Association (SOCA) started with around eight teams in 2018. They’ve now grown to about 42 teams.
“Today we have 72 teams playing under this league and four junior teams playing here all together,” said Parveen Sharma, SOCA CEO and founder. “We have 8,000 people plus involved in this league. And I’m so proud that my dream is coming true.”
The Kiwanis Park cricket ground will be found alongside the disc sport fields.
The city said this will maximize the effective use of city sports fields. Ultimate Frisbee will continue to be played on the disc sport fields on weeknights.
“They laid out the boundaries for different games, not only for cricket, they are accommodating the frisbee all with it,” Dumpoju said.
Cricket players say the opening of the new ground has been a long time coming and certainly doesn’t disappoint.
“Every time you visit any ground during the day, you will find more than 100 people there watching or playing,” Sharma said.
“Accommodating these kind of grounds will help to have a quality players get onto the Canadian team and we will look forward to see Canada winning bigger tournaments,” Dumpoju added.
The City of Cambridge and the City of Waterloo also have two cricket grounds each.
In the summer of 2026, the City of Kitchener plans to add an indoor cricket batting cage at the soon-to-come indoor recreation complex. This is meant to support the growth of the sport and increase access to training facilities year-round.
“An indoor facility is always useful because most of the people only play cricket only for six months in Canada, and six months they have to sit at home,” Shouri explained. “We would love to see another two more grounds at least in the next three years.”