Camaraderie and tradition are two things that the cricket club brings to campus at Kansas State. While the sport of cricket may not be the most popular in the community of Manhattan, it is important to many Wildcat alumni and current students.
Cricket originated in England and is the number two most popular sport worldwide. Current K-State students and alumni come together to express their competitiveness and love for their childhood sport.
Originally from Sri Lanka, Sadish Karunaweera and his wife came to K-State for their graduate
studies. His wife works as an assistant scientist at the K-State Research and Extension Soil Testing laboratory as of now. Karunaweera is currently the safety officer in the chemistry department at K-State and also teaches general chemistry courses online.
“After completing our bachelor’s and master’s [degrees] back home in Sri Lanka, my wife and I came to Manhattan in Fall 2010 for our graduate studies at K-State,” Karunaweera said.
While Karunaweera has been involved in the cricket club and has helped organize tournaments and practices, other clubs and organizations at K-State have come to assist as well.
The Indian Students’ Organization at K-State has organized past tournaments, usually consisting of a shorter version of cricket called a six-a-side tournament. A six-a-side cricket tournament is a fast-paced version of the sport with six players per team and five overs per innings.
Other organizations that have helped organize cricket tournaments are the Sri Lankan Students’ Association and the International Coordinated Council. Each organization takes turns in getting teams together to organize and compete in cricket tournaments.
On Sept. 20-21, ICC organized a cricket tournament at Memorial Stadium with the participation
of about sixty K-State students and their family members who represented eight teams. They were from
Bangladesh, India, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka and the West Indies. Karunaweera and his team — made up of other Sri Lankans — won the tournament. Their team name is Little Apple-Eksath which has a deeper meaning behind it. ‘Eksath’ is a Sinhala word for ‘united’ meaning they are from the ‘Little Apple-United’.
Another member of the cricket club is Grayantha Jayakody, a graduate student at K-State pursuing a PhD in statistics. Jayakody has only been in Manhattan and K-State for three months now, but has a home-away-from-home feeling thus far.
“It’s been really good so far,” Jayakody said. “Everyone has been really supportive. I don’t feel like I’m far away from home because of all the support I get from the community around me. It’s not only my Sri Lankan community, but other communities as well, especially the local people.”
The sport of cricket is something that Sri Lankans hold closely as a tie to their community.
“I’m really passionate about playing cricket,” Jayakody said. “I have found that most people really like to learn the game. So whenever I get some time, I usually explain all the rules and the way of playing cricket to people.”
Even though some people might believe that cricket is a lost sport, that is certainly not the case at the national level, or even in The Little Apple.
