Sports such as soccer, basketball, football, and baseball, are talked about daily, but one freshman on campus plays cricket, a sport much bigger in countries like India, Bangladesh, England, and Australia, than it is in the U.S.

Practicing nearly every day, freshman Advik Dixit plays in two different organizations: the Dallas Youth Cricket League and North Texas Cricket Association, he is one of approximately 200,000 players in the United States.

“I’m really just more concerned about playing, not about what people think,” Dixit said. “I find it disappointing that such an international sport is not known to many people, but what people think is irrelevant.”

The number of people that know about cricket could change as McKinney’s Thakkar Developers is planning to build a 15,000 seat cricket stadium near 121 and Alma, a location less than five miles from campus.

“A stadium like that would become great for cricket not just in Texas, but for all of America,” Dixit said. “I really think that the future of American cricket could just maybe depend on this stadium.”

In the meantime, Dixit and his teammates play wherever they can get field space.

“You have to book a ground and since there aren’t any stadiums for cricket or anything, it’s normally like soccer grounds and our team has to personally install a pitch since a cricket pitch can be really expensive and hard to maintain,” Dixit said. “After we install that, then we have to get permission from the  city in order to practice there so that takes around a month or two. Really it takes three or four months before we start practicing.”

Despite a lack of places to play, the Dallas Youth Cricket League consist of players from a variety of schools in the North Texas area that practice on a regular basis.

“We prepare by practicing every week 2-3 times a week and before games we have a quick session to warm and get our bodies ready,” Jasper High School student Satvik Tiwari said. “We meet a bunch of times before tournaments and games which usually we have 7-8 under 15 tournaments and club games, which started a month ago.”

Although the number of cricket players in the United States pales in comparison to some other countries, America could be the avenue the sport needs to boost its participation.

For Dixit that means inspiring kids to find their passion in the sport he already loves.

“What I play for, I captain, or sometimes I play more of an under 14 team, so the kids that we have are really young so we have to really coach them,” Dixit said. “Our goal is to help the little kids actually learn so that way when they grow older, they can help carry on the league.”