NIRSA has partnered with the International Cricket Council

NIRSA: Leaders in Collegiate Recreation and the International Cricket Council (ICC) have partnered to advance the sport of cricket in North America. The ICC is the international governing body of cricket and is responsible for the organization and governance of cricket’s major international tournaments—most notably, the Cricket World Cup. Together, NIRSA and the ICC will create a campaign that will organize intramural and club cricket opportunities on campuses across the USA.

“ICC Americas is honored and excited to partner with NIRSA for this critical cricket development program. The growth and development of cricket, especially women’s cricket, is an important part of both our short and long-term strategic objectives and we believe the nationwide reach and programmatic experience of NIRSA will allow us to make exponential strides in the growth of cricket on college campuses all over the country,” says Eric Parthen, USA Project Manager at ICC Americas.

NIRSA’s partnership with the ICC stands to advance our strategic values, specifically our values of embracing a global perspective and promoting lifelong habits of health and wellbeing. Cricket is a sport that transcends borders and cultures; by introducing it to more college campuses, we stand to give our students a new window into other countries and cultures.

The campaign aims to create new cricket players at the college level who will develop into lifelong fans and become familiar enough with the sport to coach their kids’ cricket teams in the future. The campaign will emphasize fun over performance, targeting the beginner level of play. The eventual support and development of cricket sport clubs, which generally attract a higher level of competition, may occur in the future; however, this pilot year will focus on intramural play.

Our goal is to increase the number of men’s, women’s, and co-rec teams on each campus, with a special focus on fostering inclusive participation and developing co-rec and women’s teams. NIRSA will work with the ICC to establish rules of play that focus on engaging and creating a positive experience for college students who may be new to the game. The games will also be designed to accommodate existing facility spaces and schedules.

The first step with this partnership is to understand the landscape of cricket within colleges and universities across the country today. An informational survey regarding this is now live on the cricket page of the NIRSA website, and we encourage all NIRSA members to take a few minutes to complete it.

NIRSA will also be working in the coming months to launch a pilot program for a handful of member institutions to introduce cricket programs to their communities. NIRSA and the ICC believe this grassroots participation will lead to the growth of more competition in campus intramural sports programs at member institutions across the country. Additionally, we will be working with the ICC to build out resources for campuses looking to introduce new cricket programs to their students.