SF Consul General Inaugurates Cricket Pitch At University Of The Pacific
India-West News Desk
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Consul General Dr. K. Srikar Reddy inaugurated a cricket pitch at the University of the Pacific’s Stockton campus in Stockton, CA.
Christopher Callahan, president of the University of the Pacific, and Niraj Chaudhary, the university’s dean of libraries, were among the 100 people who attended the event.
Reddy highlighted the significance of the pitch for the 450 Indian students, who account for about 50 percent of total international students at the University.
“This certainly will make more students from India consider the University of the Pacific. I could not be more pleased with this event today. We appreciate how the university has embraced our culture. We will have a great friendship with Pacific,” he said.
Pacific President Christopher Callahan was traveling with a university contingent near Ahmedabad, India last fall when Chaudhary told him, “We need a cricket pitch at Pacific.” Less than six months later, the new cricket pitch has become a reality.
The atmosphere was festive with an exhibition cricket match, Indian food, Bollywood performances, and much more in a celebration of sport and culture.
“Cricket is like a religion to us, and we appreciate the university putting in this cricket pitch,” said Yusuf Ejaz ’24, a native of New Delhi. “This is special to international students. It makes us feel like we are home.”
Callahan said a big part of the process was simply listening to students.
“Long before we built the cricket pitch, the students were playing on makeshift fields, and they wanted more,” Callahan said. “Niraj knows I am an easy sell. We wrote the plan for the facility on the way back from India, and he is the one who made it happen.”
Cricket had begun to take hold at Pacific even before the facility was dedicated. There are 93 active members on Pacific’s cricket club team—a number sure to grow with the university continuing to enroll record numbers of international students (now at 13%). Cricket also is popular in Pakistan, England, and other countries with students at Pacific.
Club members had been playing indoors at Main Gym—a functional but hardly ideal venue.
“It means a lot to us that the university would consider and build a cricket pitch. This shows how much Pacific cares about students,” said Devkumar Patel ’24, president of the Pacific Cricket Club. “Back home in India, we would play the sport every day. This will allow us to do the same thing here at Pacific.”
