ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - After a six-day work week, Indians working in the Kurdistan Region’s capital city of Erbil gather to play cricket on an informal pitch.
Cricket is hugely popular within Erbil’s Indian community, with weekly matches being held in the city every Friday. Every year, the Indian community in the Kurdistan Region organizes a cricket tournament featuring nine Indian teams.
Members of the community have called on relevant Erbil authorities to build a cricket field for them.
"It is a very popular game in India," Vijay Kamran Ozha, a member of the Indian community in the Kurdistan Region, told Rudaw on Friday, stressing that India has one of the best cricket teams in the world.
"We want to promote cricket in Kurdistan for everyone," said Ozha.
India, with two cricket World Cup titles and a current second place in the sport’s world ranking, aims to introduce cricket, a game brought to India by the British in colonial times, to the people of the Kurdistan Region
"We are in fact working on whether we can engage the Kurdish team[s] to have more participation from the local people," said Madan Gopal, India's consul general to Erbil.
Cricket is played on a grass pitch 137 meters wide and 150 meters long.
Mohammad Rafi, a cricketer said they want a "proper ground" to train and engage local Kurdish teams to join them.
While there is no exact figure, the Indian consulate estimates that 8,000 to 10,000 Indians live in the Kurdistan Region.
