Country cricket club bringing immigrants together

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Getting a full eleven together each weekend can be a bush cricket captain’s toughest challenge. But that is not a problem in Cooma. The Monaro district competition has actually added a team this season, thanks to a passionate group of migrants.

Transcript

00:00Since he can remember, Mirza Zeeshan has been crazy about cricket.

00:09In his birth country of Pakistan, he wasn't alone.

00:13Everybody loves cricket.

00:14Every street, every playground, everywhere.

00:17First week, I came here, I saw a cricket match, I said wow.

00:22It just wakes up a lot of things from the past.

00:26Hundreds of migrant worker families have relocated to Kuma in recent years to work on the Snowy

00:322.0 project.

00:33People are coming from around the world and that's why we have a lot of players registered

00:38here.

00:39With fresh faces in town, a new local team has formed, the Kuma Titans, comprised of

00:44mostly Indian and Pakistani players.

00:48The team are tough competition.

00:50Even when it was minus three, minus four, you could walk past one of the ovals in town

00:56and they were playing cricket and they played all winter.

00:58It's been quite infectious the way they love cricket.

01:02The Kuma Titans are one of seven cricket clubs to form in New South Wales this season.

01:07In its latest census, Cricket Australia has acknowledged challenges faced by sports clubs

01:13listing the retention of players as a priority.

01:16We're kind of bucking the trend a little bit in country areas.

01:20The Monaro District Cricket Association has not seen a new team join its ranks in decades

01:24until this season when the Kuma Titans signed up.

01:27Members of the cricket community here in the Alpine region say that the team have brought

01:31an additional level of skill to the game.

01:34Some of their batters are very big hitters.

01:36We're going to play aggressive.

01:38And the commitment to the sport may keep families in the country town longer.

01:42The environment that we have here, I don't think so, it's very hard to live at the moment.

01:48So yeah, I think they're going to live longer for here.

01:52Country cricket in full swing.

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