With the aim of forming the first Catalan 11-a-side cricket team and promoting a safe space for playing this minority sport, the Barcelona women’s team has put forward a project for the remodelling and adaptation of the Camp Julià de Camany that will make it city’s first cricket field. In fact, today, 11 November, David Escudé, Councillor for Sports, and Mark Serra, Councillor for Citizens’ Rights and Participation, met with the players making the proposal.
The project will involve an investment of €1.6 million, and the players’ proposal to the City Council includes the construction of a field with a pitch, a field shelter tunnel, a water point, lights, changing rooms, seating areas, a store room space, and nets to enclose the field.
All this is part of the Criquet Jove BCN programme, a project promoted by the Centre for African and Intercultural Studies (CEAi) and the Barcelona Foundation for Sport and Education (FEEB), which since 2012 has formed part of Barcelona City Council’s Convivim Esportivament programme aimed at supporting and promoting cricket, as a sport that many people living in the city identify with.
It was brought to the city by migrant communities, and has become a meeting point for different cultures and nationalities. Cricket is a sport that’s very popular in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, but although 2.3% of people living in Barcelona were born in these countries (this figure rises to 16% in neighbourhoods such as El Raval), to date there is no cricket field in the city.
In 2017, Criquet Jove BCN began to focus on promoting women’s cricket, and was able to set up a schools’ league with teams from four of the city’s neighbourhoods. This project has made it possible to establish the first all-female team in Spain.