The pace at Singh’s Sporting Goods is as languid as a cricket match some of which can last for five days.
A customer might try 30 bats before deciding to think it over and return the following day. Another might wander in, take a seat and watch a game from New Zealand on the shop’s TV.
The notion that cricket is the world’s second most popular sport is illustrated in the store’s West Indian, South Asian, English and Australian clientele, who compose New York’s modest but ardent cricketing community.
Handful of shopsWith the city’s summer cricketing season under way and players fantasising about weekend league matches complete with jerk chicken lunch breaks, the store has started seeing its busiest days. “In winter,” its owner explained, “you might not see a customer for a day or two.” There are only a handful of shops around New York that specialise in cricket equipment. And while the sport is hardly a mainstream pastime, Singh’s is a destination for the serious bowlers and wicketkeepers of the five boroughs.
One wall in the narrow store in Queens holds hundreds of bats. Hard red cricket balls are abundant. All manner of other gear is also available: bulky leg pads, helmets, specially gripped shoes, bat polishing formula, sun hats, biographies of great cricketers. “New York is the cricketing Mecca of America,” said Ricky Singh, the stores owner. Singh, 52, moved to New York from Guyana in 1986. “I came here on a Thursday and was playing cricket that Saturday,” he said.
A havenSingh started the business as a side project, when he decided the sport deserved better than having people hawk the gear during games in parks. He now runs the store with his wife Sandra. His 22-year-old son keeps a ball on a tether in the backyard for batting practice, and the store’s reputation as a cricketing haven is such that famous players like Clive Lloyd, of the dominant West Indies teams of the 1970s, have stopped by.
One Saturday near the start of the season, Mohime Mohindra Prasad travelled from Schenectady, New York, to buy a bat. He tried more than 20, covering the counter in a mass of wood planks, as he assumed batting positions, slicing slowly into the air. “I don’t like the scoop on this one,” said Prasad, 43, who is also Guyanese. Singh handed him another. “This one feels like you’re holding a bat,” he told him. “The meat is in the right spot.”
A Reggae-Beat ringtone emerged from Prasad’s phone.
“Bats are very personal,” Singh continued. “In baseball, you only swing one way. In cricket, there are many different styles.” He later suggested that baseball players are made of weaker stuff than cricketers, who catch hard leather-and-cork balls with bare hands.
Four young men showed up that afternoon, driving off with a trunk of pads, bats and balls. A Pakistani couple shopped with their 11-year-old son, buying him a miniature bat used for collecting player autographs. His father, Navaid Baqu, said his son was falling for the game, teaching Latino youths in their neighbourhood how to play.
As evening approached and Sandra Singh prepared to close, Ahmed Marzook, 20, stopped in to browse bats. His first game of the season was the next day.
“Good luck on your match tomorrow,” Sandra Singh said as he paid and prepared to leave. “I hope you make lots of runs.” — New York Times News Service
