by AMAR SHAH
This swath of land located in the San Fernando Valley, 20 minutes northwest of downtown Los Angeles, next to an archery range and a golf course has become a Shangri-La to cricketers around the world.
Cricket has a rich history in Southern California. The sport has been played there since the 1890s, but it wasn’t until the 1930s that an elderly character actor named Sir Aubrey Smith formed the Hollywood Cricket Club with Frankenstein himself, Boris Karloff.
Karloff once wrote, “I feel quite safe in prefacing my remarks by the simple statement that cricket is the finest game in the world.”
The Hollywood Cricket Club, which featured some of Hollywood’s leading actors, such as Laurence Olivier and David Niven, was able to secure land at Griffith Park near Burbank, Calif. The grounds featured four fields and a grand pavilion. But in the 1970s, equestrians who had used other areas around the field decided they wanted the ground for training.
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A woman appears ready to play.
Two years ago, Sandra Ibarra had never heard of cricket. Ibarra, a Mexican-American woman from East Lost Angeles, was working at an architecture firm where Sentance was a financial adviser. One day, he was dropping off Galaxy tickets and noticed Ibarra had a soccer jersey draped over her chair. He asked whether she played soccer. She did. “But you’re female,” he retorted. Ibarra got defensive and gave him a litany of sports she played.
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(Thanks to Robin Khundkar)