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.

Chetan Chauhan, legendary Indian opener, inaugurated the first Dreamcricket store in New Jersey.   It was a dream come true for us at Dreamcricket.   The event was covered by ethnic press and we also got a bit of TV coverage. 

Indian Era quoted Chetan Chauhan as saying, "I am impressed with Dreamcricket's focus on USA cricket and appreciate the company's efforts to develop a cricket facility here in USA that is on par with the best in the cricketing world.   I have heard of the sport's growing popularity in USA and facilities such as this one will greatly help the  development of the sport in USA."  

Click here for the full article.   And here is a slide show on their website with pictures from the inauguration. 

Here is a scan of the article that appeared in Desi Talk newspaper on September 28, 2007.

DreamCricket was featured in a recent book on Fantasy Sports by Michael Harmon, a Yahoo Sports Columnist.    Although the book focuses on mainstream American sports,  in the final chapter called "Extension of Fantasy Frontiers,"  the author talks of DreamCricket.com as a place where cricket fans across the world can connect and enter the fantasy landscape.

Some months ago, Dreamcricket registered a cricket ground on the Moon on a whim. Times of India featured this offbeat cricket news in their Sunday Specials in India.   Sri Lanka's Daily Mirror also carried the news.    Hey, we were bootstrapping, so any press was good to have!

In April 2006, Subhash Chandra’s Zee TV secured the rights for international cricket matches on neutral venues for $219.15 million. Leaving aside the monetary angle, the objective of the International Cricket Council (ICC) was to stage matches outside the ICC member nations and to take cricket to unexplored territories. The most desirable venue, the US, remains elusive owing to issues surrounding governance, infrastructure and scheduling. In fact, it is now accepted that it could be a few years before the US can host such a fixture. Among the other popular venues, Sharjah remains out of bounds due to the past match fixing episodes. Ireland has not been very conducive to the Indian cricketers’ overall health. The moon, on the other hand is ready and available. So, there is now a cricket field proposal on the moon.

The moon’s first cricket ground — the Dreamcricket Lunar Cricket Field — was registered with the Lunar Registry this past week. The sale of extraterrestrial property, though without legal standing, is a brisk business online. The International Institute of Space Law (IISL) is debating whether to establish legal language that would make such sales null and void. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967, adopted by the UN, stipulated that no “government” can own extraterrestrial property, but neglected to mention individuals. So, several space real estate agencies have surfaced over the years and have actually made money by selling land deeds.

The Lunar Cricket Field is located on the Near Side of the Moon in the Equatorial Region, and is owned by Dreamcricket.com, a US based company that began by devising online cricket games and went to buy media rights for cricket telecasts in North America. “Admittedly, it is a whacky idea to buy property on the moon. We just did it to express our frustration about neutral venue cricket, more specifically the lack of it, especially in the US,” Venu Palaparthi co-founder of Dreamcricket.com says. “So we paid $25 for the cricket ground on the moon.”

Why the moon? “Well, it is the perfect neutral venue for cricketers from the sub-continent. Look at all the advantages — it allows cricketers like Sehwag to regain form because gravity makes it very easy to hit a boundary. Also, there are no distractions due to advertising and fielding is convenient because one can dive around without fear of injury.” When asked if the land deed was legal, he smiled. “Let the legal experts worry about that.”

Come to think of it, sporting activity on the moon is not such a fantastic thought. On February 6, 1971, Alan Shepard of the Apollo 14 mission became the first man to hit a golf ball on the moon, using a ball and golf club head he had smuggled on board inside his space suit. He hit two balls just before lift-off, and sliced them out of the sand trap. They travelled, as he put it, “miles and miles and miles”.

Why not just build a cricket ground in the US? “We hope to build a natural turf facility in the US some day,” Kranthi Bayya, Director of Dreamcricket, says with hope. Dreamcricket recently obtained angel funding and is opening its first physical cricket store in New Jersey in August, 2007. The 3,200-square foot store will feature indoor nets that will offer a 35-foot run-up for the bowler. Bowling machines and video analysis software are being planned.

Image shows the location of the lunar cricket field

The Indian is a newspaper read by expats in Australia.   Way before Boria Majumdar started writing for Dreamcricket, he chanced upon our DVD catalog whilst on a lecture tour of USA.  He was astonished that we had all this footage on DVD (none of it was gray market stuff!).   In fact, that is how we got to know him in the first place.

In December of 2006, Dreamcricket.com announced plans to help cricket leagues and clubs manage their websites.   Cricket websites can either use Dreamcricket widgets/RSS feeds or can outsource their websites entirely to Dreamcricket.com

DesiNJ magazine wrote an article on a New Jersey club that uses Dreamcricket widgets and RSS feeds to manage their content.

Dreamcricket's Fantasy Cricket game was mentioned in 'The Hindu' ahead of the 2003 World Cup.   

 Monday, February 10, 2003

World Cup on the Web

EVEN A cursory search using well-known tools such as Google or Altavista for Internet resources on the cricket World Cup throws up hundreds of websites -- good, bad and ugly.

The last time around, cricket on the Internet was something of a novelty and many providers vied with each other to come up with innovative resources. This time most cricket websites are dishing out essentially the same thing -- past statistics, team profiles and live updates of the current matches.

The big change is that many international sites have gone from free to fee and live video highlights and other ball-by-ball coverage can be only had against payment. But, for hardcore fans, some free resources are still to be had. The major web resource is probably Cricinfo.com whose website www.cricket.org also hosts the official sites of the International Cricket Council (ICC).

The video feed requires a Real One player and even this service is free only on a trial basis after which one has to pay in dollars for the privilege.

The official site of the hosts South Africa is www.cricketworldcup.com which contains little more than the match schedule and details of the teams and the grounds. A look at the section entitled `Visa Regulations' shows that cricket fans from the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Holland are provided visas on arrival but those from other countries including India, West Indies, Pakistan, Bangladesh and South Africa's closest neighbours such as Zimbabwe and Kenya have to obtain a visa before leaving their own countries.

Clearly some things in South Africa are still the same as the bad old days of apartheid.

Among Indian resources, the cricket page of Rediff.com is full of information as well as some well-known specialist cricket columns.

Cricketweb.net provides a number of goodies for fans including a freely-downloadable cricket game which is just 212kb.

For those who want to play fantasy cricket by selecting dream teams of their choice, espnstar.com lets you be a `super selector'.

Another site that lets you select your team is dreamcricket.com. Finally, if you are a fan of Navjot Sidhu's unique brand of cricket commentary, msn.com contains a total archives of `Sidhuisms'.