As reported in Indian Express.

Twenty20 cricket is the fastest growing new sport in the United States. And Indians, including some from Bangalore, are behind it. As reported in the Bangalore Mirror.

As reported in Sportz Power, Mumbai.

 Cricket conf programme.pdf

Edison Cricket Club - a non profit organization with a mission to promote cricket in Edison & beyond and Dreamcricket.com - the one stop destination for cricket coaching, commerce and content have partnered to take the game to the kids by launching a summer camp for the youth in Edison Township.

Ever since the start in 2003, Edison Cricket Club has been surging ahead with various initiatives like the T20 Community Cricket Match and the Emirates Annual Awards show that the club conducts every year where high profile community leaders are honored and inducted into Edison Cricket Club's advisory board.

New Jersey based Dreamcricket.com, already has a highly successful Cricket Academy for all age groups.  Dreamcricket Academy was visited by legendary batsman Sunil M Gavaskar and more recently by Balwinder Singh Sandhu. Its coaching staff include Earl Daley, Malika Frank and Gokul Chakravarthy and a host of visiting coaches such as Ian Pont, Bharath Kumar and Linden Fraser. In order to improve cricket infrastructure and to aid cricket development in USA, Dreamcricket.com has been partnering with like-minded organizations such as the Edison Cricket Club for the last couple of years.

Speaking on the occasion, Kranthi Bayya, CEO of Dreamcricket.com said, "Our Dreamcricket Academy has been extremely successful with introducing cricket to youth over the last two years operating from our facility in Hillsborough. Through collaborative initiatives such as the Edison Summer Camp, we are now taking our coaching program directly to communities where cricket is making inroads. In cricket terms, this is a perfect partnership".

Atul Huckoo, President of Edison Cricket Club, echoed her comments adding, "We are excited to get involved and to keep the spirit of cricket alive in the future generation. This helps us connect with the community at large. We believe the sport of cricket builds children of great character and discipline."

The DIRECTV Summer Coaching Camp is a 14 week program starting May 30^th.  DIRECTV’s which is title sponsor of this coaching camp has launched CricketTicket which includes live broadcasts of all IPL, ICC, Champions league and many other tournaments in 100% digital picture and sound allowing cricket fans to enjoy watching the matches with nostalgia while sharing the fun with friends, friends and children.

Western Union is proud to sponsor the camp which will help train youth in various skills including discipline, teamwork and good health habits, while pursuing their passion for cricket. Western Union is delighted to support the community as players on each team pursue the Championship to win the Western Union Cup.

Indus American Bank, is a wholly owned subsidiary of IA Bancorp, Inc, founded in 2004 by local businessmen and community leaders to provide superior financial products and services to its local community. It is also the official bank of Edison Cricket Club and has supported Edison Cricket Club in their early venture of T20 Community Cricket Match in 2008.Headquartered in Iselin, New Jersey, Indus American Bank operates full service branches in New Jersey and New York. Indus American Bank has been founded specifically to serve the needs of the South Asians, one of the fastest growing segments of the Asian ethnic group over the coming decade. Presently, Indus American Bank serves both the business as well as the retail customer.

Camp Features:

• League level outdoor pitch
• Indoor net practice every third week
• Video analysis
• Play actual matches against rival teams
• Drills to improve Mental and Physical sharpness
• ICC, WICB, ECB methodologies of coaching
• Mental strength and conditioning
  

Schedule and Fees:

• Days:  Saturday
• Time: 4:00 pm - 7:00 pm
• Duration: June, July, August (choose any or all months)
• Venue: Thomas Jefferson Middle School, 450 Division Street, Edison NJ 08817 and Dreamcricket Academy, 5 Jill Court, Building 14, Unit 16, Hillsborough, NJ 08844
• Cost: $100/month
• Registration: starts from May 30th - June 7th, 2009

For further information, please email to mgmt@edisoncricketclub.org or call 1-877-HIT-A-SIX

Batting legend, Sunil Gavaskar, visited DreamCricket Academy in NJ and spent quality time with the junior cricketers there. In a short and inspiring speech, Gavaskar reinforced the importance of the sport saying "Participating in sports is the biggest high you can get. It is the reflection of the society you are in". Edison Mayor, Jun H. Choi welcomed Gavaskar to the township of Edison while expressing his belief in "the great power of sport to bring people together".

Gavaskar, regarded as the greatest opening batsmen of all time, held many world careers during his career, including that of most test runs  (10,122) and most centuries (32). The latter record stood for some two decades before it was broken by his protege, Sachin Tendulkar, in 2005. Gavaskar, who was a panel speaker at the Wharton India Economic Forum, 2009, stopped in New Jersey on his way back to India to catch up with friends in the region. Following a visit to junior cricketers at DreamCricket Academy, a cricket training facility in New Jersey, Gavaskar stopped at Edison.

He said that he was very impressed with New Jersey's junior cricketers and noted that the next step in the development of cricket in Edison would be to introduce good quality grounds in the area. When DreamCricket.com requested the Little Master  to visit the DreamCricket Academy, Gavaskar immediately agreed despite his hectic schedule and connected with the kids instantly. Noticing the hands go up reluctantly when he asked who the DreamCricket Academy's opening batsmen were, he joked, "I don't blame you. You have to be crazy to be openers!".

The young players were not old enough to have seen the Little Master in action during his playing days, but they were awestruck when they were introduced to someone considered India's best ever opening batsmen. Gavasker gave a short and inspiring speech saying "Remember that, above all, this is a sport. You have to enjoy sports. Participating in sports is the biggest high that you can have. It's a reflection of the society that you are in. Sometimes, the better batsmen looks after the lesser batsmen, the better bowler looks after the lesser bowler."

Asked whether American-born cricketers had a chance to play cricket at the highest level, Gavasker said, "I think that with effort comes better performance. When you perform, you get noticed. And higher honors await you. Throughout the process, enjoy the sport and get the thrill of participation."

Gavasker spent an hour in the nets with the children as they got a chance to bowl to the legend. He then watched some of the kids practice their batting. Edison Cricket Club president and Gavasker's host in Edison, Atul Huckoo noted that Edison could become the regional center for international cricket.

The success of the inaugral NuWare NJ Twenty20 tournament has led many experts to believe that it is only a matter of time before Americans embrace Twenty20 cricket in a big way! The entertainment filled extravaganza was lapped up by throngs of spectators in New Windsor, NJ. Over 1,000,000 kept track of the matches through DreamCricket's live text feed on the tournament website NJT20.com while thousands followed the proceedings live on EBC 1170 AM. 

As reported in Sakshi, a Telugu newspaper.

DreamCricket.com recently organized the fast-paced and entertaining NuWare New Jersey Twenty20 cricket tournament in New Windsor, NJ. The milestone event attracted top regional and national level players to showcase their talent. NuWare, Citibank, Reebok, SmithBarney were some of the tournament sponsors, which had a prize purse valued at $10,000 including a $5,000 cash prize for the winner.

The Department of Education, New York, inaugrated cricket as its newest league sport with about 600 high school students playing on 14 teams in a 12-game season. New York is currently the only public school in the country to offer competitive cricket. The most plausible explanation for this move looks to be the growing South Asian presence in the US. And this cricket-loving diaspora is served by none other than DreamCricket's all in one Pavilion Shop, Academy, Indoor Nets, and online site.

The book opens with a quote by DreamCricket founder and then devotes a section on the subject of America to DreamCricket and the passion of its founders.   We are grateful for this attention and share the hope of the author, Boria Majumdar, that cricket really takes off in USA.

SPAN magazine's Sebastian John visited Dreamcricket Pavilion indoor cages and Pro Shop in Hillsborough during December of 2007.    The indoor cages were part of an extensive article about the Indian community in Edison. 

Edison, New Jersey: An Indian American Town

From indoor cricket to a Hindu temple, pan shops, dosa and biryani stalls, and saris in the store windows, this eastern U.S. suburban area could be an Indian municipality.

Driving down Oak Tree Road in Edison, New Jersey, is like going through Lajpat Nagar market in New Delhi-albeit with some key differences. Chock-a-block with sari showrooms, grocery stores selling curry pata, and Bollywood music shops...even the mannequins have the same plastic hair. Though the streets are crowded in the early evenings, they are not, however, packed with people jostling for a spot to examine street vendors' wares. Also, parking spots are plentiful, and there are only a few blasts from car horns.

This is "Little India," and like the Chinatowns and Little Italys that came before it, it is the expression of an immigrant culture that is finally establishing itself in the melting pot of America. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, Edison's population of about a 100,000 was 17.5 percent Indian American. That is the highest percentage of any municipality in the United States, and growing. Edison's mayor, Jun Choi, estimates that Indians and Indian Americans now make up one-third of the city.

It has come a long way from the small grocery store and video shop outpost that residents remember from the 1980s. Now the Indian section of Oak Tree Road stretches for about three kilometers and boasts a designer clothing mall with brands like Ritu Beri's. Patrons of all races and skin colors shop for bangles and halal meat.

The 40-minute train ride to New York City from the Edison Metro Center station is the biggest reason for the Indian diaspora in Edison. With cheaper home prices and the added bonus of backyards, Indians working in New York flocked to the town throughout the 1990s and the last decade.

Indian-centric businesses are flourishing, and not just the dosa and chicken tikka restaurants. You can buy cricket bats, learn Bollywood dancing and try on wedding saris within a 48-kilometer radius. Big Indian companies like Infosys, Birlasoft and Ranbaxy have offices in the area, a sign of prosperity that is not immediately apparent on Oak Tree Road.

Pradip Kothari, owner of a travel agency and an activist for the Indian community, helped see it through the worst times in the early 1990s, when local prejudices against proliferating Indian American businesses led to his brand new agency office being burned by vandals. Other businesses were destroyed, too, and the community was afraid. Kothari knew that something must be done. "We come in this country like everyone else and want to have the American dream," says Kothari, 61, who arrived in the United States in 1970 and had just moved to Edison at the time the trouble started. First, he helped to get the businesses together and set up a night watch program, which became so strong they started chasing some vandals down so they could be arrested. The community also brought their grievances to the courts and established a successful Navaratri festival for the Gujarati population, attracting thousands of attendees each year.

Though Kothari acknowledges that some tensions remain, he believes the local community has largely embraced the Indians. For instance, Dr. Sudanshu Prasad, an Indian American physician, is a township council member, and Kaizen Technologies, an Indian American-owned firm with offices in both countries, was just named business of the year by the Edison Chamber of Commerce.

"The Indian community has brought in a wealth of diversity to the township of Edison," says Mayor Choi. "The community has several prominent doctors...as well as a large number of professionals in the information technology and finance industries. The increased global trade between our country and India has been partly responsible for the rapid growth of the Indian community in Edison. It will continue to bring more technology-based business to Edison and, consequently, enrich our economy as well."

Kumar Balani publishes Biz India magazine, based in nearby East Brunswick, which details success stories of Indian business people in the United States and dishes out investment advice. When pitching to advertisers, Balani has a powerful set of figures behind him. First, he says that the Indian population in New Jersey grew from 170,000 in 2000 to about 270,000 in 2007, according to his research. Also, according to the Indian American Center for Political Awareness, almost 40 percent of all Indians in the United States have a master's, doctorate or other professional degree (five times the national average) and a 2003 study by Merrill Lynch found that one in every 26 Indians in the United States is a millionaire. When he relates these figures to non-Indian advertisers, Balani says that 99 percent of them respond, "'Wow! Really?' So we ask them, 'Is this a market you want to get into?'" His business is growing as more advertisers answer "yes"-from 5,000 copies in the paper's first run in 2002 to 30,000 now.

Other businesses are growing as well. Mahendra Bohra, 31, is a co-founder of Dreamcricket, which is expanding its Brown and Willis cricket gear brand. It's a long way from when he made his own Web site, dreamcricket.com, as a hobby when he graduated in 2000 from Syracuse University in New York state. Taking inspiration from the American pastime of fantasy football-in which fans create their own "team" of players from actual football teams and compete on line based on those players' real-life performances during games-he created a fantasy cricket game. Soon, however, he and his friends realized they could turn this passion into something more.

Now, New Jersey residents can play cricket year-round in the indoor cricket pitch at the store Bohra and his pals set up in Hillsborough, near Edison. It features $8,000 worth of automatic pitching machines with 25 variations of speed and movement. In addition to running cricket news and the on-line game, Dreamcricket also sells DVDs of World Cups and other famous matches. Bohra, who came from Bombay to attend university in the United States in the 1990s, lives in Princeton, New Jersey, from where he helps run the business. Cricket products are sold on line and out of stores in New Jersey and Fremont, California. Though Bohra and most of his friends in the company still have their day jobs (he works for a technology firm), he believes Dreamcricket will turn into a full-time commitment as America gets more familiar with cricket as a sport.

Atul Huckoo has similar hopes for the Edison Cricket Club, which made it to the statewide cricket play-offs in 2007. A Kashmiri who lived in the United States as a child and returned in 1999 after other stops around the world, Huckoo, 47, directs advertising sales for a syndicated television network, Imaginasian TV, which has programming from India, China and South Korea. Though he used to play cricket, he now spends his spare time managing the club and has roped in sponsors such as Emirates Airlines, which provides general funding, and Kingfisher, which provides free beer. "We either celebrate with chilled beer or drown our sorrows in it," he says, laughing.

The cricket league for the entire state of New Jersey started in 1994 with 32 teams and has grown to 44. With sponsors, Huckoo has attracted better players, and with support from the city authorities, he has access to a general purpose field large enough to play the game properly, instead of the baseball fields used earlier.

With so many South Asians around, interest in cricket is high and Edison has movie theaters that show India-Pakistan matches. Huckoo realizes it is a challenge to get average Americans interested in the game. Though they don't usually watch the matches, non-Indians do walk past when a game is on, stop to look and ask questions. Huckoo tries his best to answer, he says, but, "It's difficult for Americans to grasp how six to seven hours are dedicated to the game." The shorter Twenty20 form would bring wider popularity, he thinks.

Volunteers of the Edison Swaminarayan temple in nearby Iselin are also familiar with answering lots of questions. Neighbors ask about Hinduism during the annual fundraiser for local hospitals and during the Diwali feast, when temple members invite their non-Hindu friends. The fundraiser, in which volunteers pledge to walk a certain distance in exchange for donations, "allows us and the community to explore one another and understand one another," says Siddharth Dubal, a second-generation Indian American and a lawyer.

Another second-generation Indian American, college freshman Vinay Limbachia, answers questions about reincarnation in his role as a leader in the Hindu Student Council at nearby Rutgers University. "There are some misconceptions, but they are few and far between," he says. He recently organized a discussion of monotheism versus polytheism on campus. Limbachia started attending the temple's religious and Gujarati language classes in his early teens. "I became a more aware individual. I felt like I was part of something bigger," he says. "I'm proud to say I can at least write my name [in Gujarati] now." Limbachia sees more second- and third-generation Indian Americans becoming involved in the temple, and he's always pushing for more members of his student organization. One of his biggest dreams is to return to India; but first, he's got to brush up on his Gujarati. Sebastian John is an Indian writer and photographer based in Washington, D.C.

Please share your views on this article. Write to editorspan@state.gov

This article first appeared in US Embassy's SPAN Magazine.  Jan-Feb 2008 edition. 

On Monday, September 24, 2007,  on the morning of the Twenty20 World Cup, and just 3 days after the inauguration of the flagship store of the Dreamcricket Pavilion in Hillsborough, all Gannett newspapers across New Jersey and New York, including Courier News and Ithaca Journal wrote about cricket's growth in the state and how Dreamcricket is serving the sport in the country.   The article featured Kranthi Bayya showing off some bats. 

Here is a screen grab from the Courier News website main page and the article itself. 

In 2005, a New Jersey radio station called Dhoom FM had us sponsoring their quiz.

In 2007, Dreamcricket hosted a talk show on EBC radio in New Jersey - a short lived effort that ended when the Indians got knocked out.

However, our internet games continued to be promoted by the Play channel of the satellite radio WorldSpace throughout the World Cup 2007.