Since the start of Vladimir Putin’s cold-blooded invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the stories and images being broadcast from the country are horrifying. War is gutting Ukrainians’ lives, but the ambitious and quirky place where I have lived and worked is still there. Many people are surprised, for example, to learn that Ukraine has several cricket teams.
The father of cricket in Ukraine is a man named Hardeep Singh, who brought the game to the city of Kharkiv in 1993. After first arranging hit-arounds in local parks, where he and other expats from India could stave off homesickness, Singh went on to create a cricket league with several teams. If in the 1990s his most important task was bailing his players out of police cells before matches, by the 2010s he was making plans to build an international-standard ground. The land he ended up buying used to belong to a rugby union team.
Instead of preparing to host international cricket in Kyiv and Kharkiv, those cities were being hit by Russian bombs
Cricket really took off in the country when Ukrainians got involved.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in