Amidst an increasingly polarised and tense geopolitical landscape, it’s more difficult – but never more important – to find common ground. But between Australia and its subcontinental neighbours, cricket can have an almost panacean impact. For migrants from the likes of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal, the sport is more than a mere pastime; it’s a sacred bridge between the homes they have left behind, and the homes they are building here. culturally inclusive cricket clubs
However, a recent report by the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute (SFRI), titled “It’s not just cricket: sport, social cohesion and belonging,” highlights that cricket’s power to unite is often under-harnessed.
While many clubs profess openness to all, stories persist of subtle, often unintentional exclusion – whether in the form of unconscious bias, cultural ignorance, or institutional barriers to advancement. From dietary norms not catered for at club barbecues, to divergent senses of humour, to the near absence of South Asian voices in cricket’s Anglo-centric boardrooms, cricket is often its own worst enemy in welcoming the communities – and, at its core, the key customers – that it covets.
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But as the SFRI report notes, there’s a groundswell of change afoot. Revelling in the echo of willow on leather and the comforting aromas of homemade biryani shared at the boundary line, South Asian Australians are reshaping community cricket. They’ve established clubs, competitions and teams that cultivate an intoxicating mix of culture and sport, fostering inclusivity in a dynamic and organic way that administrators have yet to fully grasp.
One of these clubs is Hornsby District Cricket Club (HDCC), which fields nine senior men’s cricket teams in a northern Sydney competition, including two predominantly subcontinental teams that are each run as a “club within a club,” while integrating with the broader club structure.
Sandheep Gopalakrishan co-manages one of those teams. Though Sandheep has played for various teams within the club for nearly 15 years, in the last two seasons, Sandheep has formed a team of family friends who simply wanted to spend more time together, a project which has had a butterfly effect.
“We appreciate that HDCC has given us a platform to do this,” says Sandheep to Indian Link. “With all the guys always away playing on Saturdays, our families now get together and catch up on those days, including at our games – albeit sometimes just to complain about how us overgrown kids have gone for our “playdates!” Our community has only grown stronger for it.”
HDCC’s self-run teams may operate independently, largely sourcing their own players, bringing traditional home-cooked meals to matches, playing Hindi or Punjabi music, and speaking freely in their own languages. But importantly, they are also very much a part of the club’s fabric; they attend post-match clubhouse drinks and barbeques (though many may opt for the non-alcoholic or vegetarian options freely – and intentionally – available), they create friendships across the club and they celebrate other teams’ successes. It’s this integration that is a non-negotiable for clubs like HDCC.
“There potentially is a stigma in subcontinental teams playing and speaking in a foreign language,” acknowledges Sandheep, whose team converse with each other in Tamil and occasionally Malayalam. “I can see an effort in teams trying to speak more in English to be inclusive and the key is to embrace this change. But in every sport, teams have code languages they speak to discuss strategies and speaking in a different language is sometimes just the simplest form of that!” culturally inclusive cricket clubs
HDCC Vice-President and A Grade captain Alec Southam is particularly proud of how these teams have integrated with the club while maintaining their authenticity. “We are very proud these teams have found a home with us, and of the success they have achieved. We want them to feel included as part of our club, free to be their authentic selves and feel welcome in any of our teams as though their own.”
The SFRI report follows a recent study by Monash University which found that 30% of participants in community sport have directly experienced racism, with 20% of those reducing or changing their participation in community sport as a result. In a hyper-competitive sporting landscape, no sport can afford that level of attrition – especially not cricket, given its proportion of multicultural participants.
Cricket Australia committed to becoming a more inclusive and representative sport, including through its first Multicultural Action Plan. There are also promising signs in grassroots funding, with some state associations partnering directly with South Asian-led cricket groups to provide coaching accreditation, facility access, and development support and even piloting cultural competency training for coaches and administrators.
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The SFRI report makes eight further recommendations for improving the Australian cricketing ecosystem, including improving systems literacy for new migrants, increasing multicultural presence in C-suites, and increasing regulation of coaches and umpires.
Of course, it’s not just up to administrators: clubs and players are also responsible for creating the environments that they desire. As the SFRI report notes, change is not top-down: South Asian participants are responding by “creating and being in control of their own cricketing experiences in a multicultural club environment.” (community cricket)
True cohesion and integration though, cannot occur if the game’s administrators and communities operate in silos. Australian cricket is not broken, but those tasked with running the game must develop a better understanding of its key demographics.
Southam perhaps sums it up best: “To grow the club we need to reach beyond our normal pathways, to find ways to access new communities.” In that regard, there’s a lot for administrators to learn from clubs like HDCC and others mentioned in the SFRI report. culturally inclusive cricket clubs
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