Cricket
Barcelona to build a cricket stadium — Thanks to young women from India and Pakistan
In a very surprising development, The Guardian reported that the football-crazy city of Barcelona will soon have its own cricket stadium.
The Barcelona players see themselves as ambassadors for the sport. (Source: Xavier Jubierre/eldiario.es/The Guardian)
Barcelona is synonymous with football. In fact, the first thing that comes to the mind of any sports fan when they hear 'Barcelona' is either football or Lionel Messi.
In a very surprising development, The Guardian reported that the football-crazy city of Barcelona will soon have its own cricket stadium.
Barcelona had given its citizens a chance to vote on a €30 million package of new facilities ranging from cycling lanes to playgrounds. To everyone's surprise out of the total 822 facilities which were in the fray at voting, cricket got the highest number of votes.
According to The Guardian, this surprise was sprung by a group of young women mainly from India and Pakistan.
"It all began three years ago in secondary school when the gym teacher said: 'Right, we're going to start a cricket club out of school hours. Who's up for it?" said the eldest of the group, Hifsa Butt, on how they started playing cricket.
The girls who harbour the hope of setting up a women's cricket team from Catalan used to train at a Baseball ground. But, since the baseball season started they have been forced to train indoors using a tennis ball.
Now, the Julia de Capmany dirt field on Montjuic is expected to be turned into an AstroTurf cricket pitch following cricket winning the voting process.
