Cricket, Las Vegas style

Tuesday, June 5, 2007 | 6:54 a.m.

Billed as the second-most watched sport in the world, cricket can be a test to watch because, yes, test matches can last three to five days, at eight to nine hours a day. No wonder it has tea and lunch breaks. Sliced cucumber, anyone? Thankfully, the World Cup is played in an abbreviated form.

Here are some rough and abridged guidelines.

Teams

Eleven players a side. The fielding team has a bowler, a wicket-keeper and nine others placed around the field by the captain. The hitting team has a striker and non striker.

The field

A large circular or oval-shaped grassy ground, of a diameter from 450 to 500 feet.

The pitch

Usually 66 feet long and 10 feet wide, this is where the bowling and hitting take place. The three-team league in the valley uses a mat made of the interwoven fiber of coconut husks. Bowlers hurl the red leather ball from behind one wicket - three vertical stumps with two horizontal bails balanced on top - to the other, at a batsman. The batsman hits until recording an out in one of 10 ways.

Innings

Typically, matches of two innings are played from three to five days. Each innings (yes, in this sport, that's grammatically correct) is divided into overs, each consisting of six consecutive legal deliveries by the same bowler. After an over is completed, a new bowler throws and the batting and bowling ends are swapped. A team's innings (remember, singular) end when the 10th hitter makes an out, because two batsmen must always be on the field.

Got it?

Outs

The most common way to record an out is when the bowler dislodges a bail from the wicket, whether the batsman hits the ball or not. Other ways to make out: The ball is caught on the fly, the batsman hits the ball twice or either batsmen is run out when a fielder hits the wicket before the runner. The umpire also can rule that a missed ball that hits a batsman's body would have hit the wicket, making the batter out leg before wicket or LBW.

Runs

Batsmen may - not must - run when the ball is hit and score a run each time the batsmen at both ends reach the other wicket before the fielder can return the ball. Batsmen also score on a ball that reaches the boundary (four runs) or flies over the boundary (six).

In the U.S.

Cricket is alive in certain areas, such as Arizona, the Northwest and, especially, California, where several Southern California colleges sport teams. New York City public schools will sponsor varsity cricket next school year, the first school district to do so in the country.

U.S. national team

Don't ask. Never qualified for a Cricket World Cup. Also, the U.S. governing body of the sport was recently suspended by the International Cricket Council in a dispute about how the Americans run cricket. Much-needed funding has been lost.

- Rob Miech

Applause ushers Kalika Pathirana onto the makeshift cricket pitch on the fringe of Las Vegas.

He doesn't disappoint, slicing one ball beyond the boundary for four runs, nearly to the feet of a cluster of admirers sitting on white plastic chairs under a dark green canopy.

Pathirana, who lost his right arm below the elbow in 1992 during Sri Lanka's civil war, is a fan favorite for his hustle and inspiration.

He competed for Sri Lanka at the Atlanta Paralympics in 1996 in the 100 and 200 meters, and long jump. He came to Las Vegas in 2001. Two years ago, the grocery store cashier won the all-around cricketer prize at a match in Arizona.

"It's a big trophy," says Pathirana, who plays for the Lankan Cricket and Recreation Club , which staged the informal match on a recent Sunday afternoon. "I get a lot of support. Everyone helps me a lot. They tell me, 'You're doing good.' They push me."

With more attention and support, the sparse cricket community in Las Vegas might some day grow into a league of more than three teams, which could compete with neighboring states and boast of its own manicured oval.

For now, it survives on life support, relegated to the far east end of the Silver Bowl Soccer Complex.

Bowling for vade

Bob Clark, who grew up playing the sport in Antigua, wanders and sees the tell-tale stumps and flat-sided bats being hauled to the field by men in white uniforms.

Pathirana, 35, turns to Clark, 60, and smiles.

"You can come and play with us."

Sitting on a covered picnic table with his feet on its bench, Clark politely declines the invitation.

The West Indies, which includes Antigua and won the first cricket World Cup in 1975, is one of the cricket-mad countries, mostly former and current British colonies.

When Clark arrived in Las Vegas 30 years ago, he played on weekends at the Woodbury School.

Eventually, at the Silver Bowl, the limousine driver grows restless. He grabs a red leather cricket ball to see whether he still has form, and bowls a few dozen warm up deliveries to a batsman.

"You got it, man!" a player yells to Clark.

A nearby picnic table is stocked with godamba (meat and vegetable pastries), cutlets (potato and fish balls), vade (lentil and onion balls) and other homemade Sri Lankan dishes. Ice chests are filled with beer and soda.

Newcomers and visitors are encouraged regularly to help themselves to the spread.

A bright Sri Lankan flag - green, orange and maroon, with a roaring lion - hangs next to an American flag on a nylon line. Sri Lankan music wafts from portable speakers.

Kids chase one another around or play minicricket with a tennis ball. Families sit on blankets under trees, shading themselves from the triple-digit heat.

"It's kinda crazy," Clark says, "to see all these people involved."

The player who complimented Clark on his bowling style asks whether he's from the West Indies. Clark nods.

"There was a player ... Richards," the player says. Clark again nods.

Sir Viv "Master Blaster" Richards, who casually chewed gum and wore a cap instead of a helmet while hitting for the West Indies from the late 1970s until the early 1990s, is widely hailed as one of the game's all-time players.

"I hope it succeeds here," Clark says. "But it's so slow. If you aren't involved, you can't handle more than an hour of just watching.

"If you're involved in it, you can play all week."

After an hour, Clark bites into an egg roll, takes a few swigs out of a Budweiser can and leaves.

Like little kids

Adnan Khawaja, 28, left Pakistan with his parents and three siblings in 1993.

A year earlier, Pakistan had claimed its first and only World Cup title, beating England in the final in Melbourne, Australia.

His passion for the sport was high when he landed in Las Vegas, and it hasn't waned.

The head of the Las Vegas Cricket Club , Khawaja is soft-spoken and proper, until the cricket turns serious.

"They're so intense on the field," his Indian girlfriend, Kamalini Mukerjee, says. "Like little kids."

Khawaja earned bachelor's and master's degrees at UNLV, and he has been a data processor for Sierra Health for three years.

It was difficult for him to process Pakistan's stunning defeat by Ireland at the World Cup in Jamaica in March and difficult to process what followed.

Less than 24 hours after the loss, Bob Woolmer, the South African-born coach of the Pakistani national team, was found unconscious, likely already dead, in the bathroom of his Jamaica hotel room.

International media poked at the Agatha Christie-like cricket murder mystery in the Caribbean. Theories fingered a crazed fan, gambling rings, the Indian mafia, even al-Qaida.

Latest reports point to champagne tainted with a heavy dosage of pesticide. An assistant coach, who doesn't drink, had given Woolmer the wine. Scotland Yard's investigation continues.

"I mean, cricket is a gentleman's game," Khawaja says. "This was a shocker."

A struggle

Ravi Waththuhewage, who runs the Lankan Cricket and Recreation Club, is more suspicious than Khawaja. Smiles and words don't come easily, nor do World Cup trophies.

Sri Lanka lost the World Cup finale to Australia in Barbados in April. Waththuhewage believes rainy weather favored the Aussies.

Las Vegas Cricket Club members are mostly Pakistanis and Indians, although a New Zealander and an American serviceman, who picked up the sport on base in England, have asked about joining. Sri Lankans dominate the Lankan club.

Waththuhewage first picked up a cricket bat in Sri Lanka when he was 12. He came to Las Vegas in 1998 and works at a Pizza Hut. He took over the reins of the the Lankan club, which started six years ago, in 2004.

When membership flags in either club, as is usually the case, they combine forces for out-of-state tournaments.

"We're trying to promote cricket in Las Vegas," Waththuhewage, 35, says. "But we have a hard time finding people, and it's always a challenge getting a ground."

The two clubs and a group of UNLV engineers form the valley's lone league, which plays fall and winter-spring seasons. They mostly play at VoTech High or at the Silver Bowl.

"But we can't get a proper ground," Waththuhewage says. "There are insurance concerns. Still, we need help from county or city officials. It could prosper here with a proper oval."

Without the organizational skills of Waththuhewage and Khawaja, both know the sport's future in the valley.

"It wouldn't last," Khawaja says.

"We have to keep it going at a good standard," Waththuhewage says. "We can't give up now."

Not with Pathirana's infectious enthusiasm for cricket, if not life, serving as an example.

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