It seems like every sport imaginable is represented in the long list of teams fielded by Rutgers’ students every year. But there’s been one very popular world sport missing from that list: cricket. Now, a group of students has changed that by forming a club team for a sport that is a national obsession outside of the United States.

“Cricket is like a religion in India,” said Anik Jain, vice president of the Rutgers Cricket Club and a senior in New Brunswick studying biomedical engineering. “It is far bigger than baseball and soccer [are here]. It would be safe to say that cricket is the only sport in India. As kids, we used to play almost everyday and anywhere. We played on a huge ground outside, and in bad weather, we’d play inside our house.”

Most of the club’s members are originally from India; but cricket’s popularity extends far beyond that country’s borders. Even the United States and Canada have their own cricket teams that play teams from other nations, Jain added. Right now, the Australian team is dominant in world play, having won the last three World Cups.

“Cricket isn’t popular only in India,” said Ankit Pandya, a senior on the New Brunswick Campus studying economics and coach of the new Rutgers Cricket Club. Pandya helped start the team last fall with the help of Rutgers Recreation staff. “We have players from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India; we have players who are U.S. citizens and residents,” he said. “We have players from all over the world.”

New Jersey, as it happens, is a hotbed of cricket activity.

“When I started here at Rutgers, I was amazed to find out that there are more than 150 cricket teams in the New Jersey area, in all kinds of informal leagues,” Pandya said.

The club has 55 members – all of them men – but the group hopes to start a women’s team when they can field enough players. Organized women’s cricket teams have been playing in India for more than 40 years.

Pratik Shah, a sophomore who is president of the Indian Student Association on the Newark Campus, said he has seen some of the club’s games but, so far, only one student from his campus has become a member. Club members said they would like to entice students from Newark and Camden to join.

Club practice sessions, which typically last four to five hours, are held in a spare field at the Hillsborough Batting Cages in Somerset County, and members break into three internal teams that play against each other. These sessions determine who plays in the games. Plans are in the works to set up a regular practice space on the Livingston Campus, and the team hopes to have a permanent home base by the end of the summer.

 “You’d be surprised by how many schools have cricket teams,” said Poras Patel, president of the club and a New Brunswick senior studying biochemistry. “We play against Villanova University, Stockton [College], and [the] University of Pennsylvania, to name a few.”

In a recent match, the Rutgers team played in Atlantic City against a team from Stockton College.

“It was very close,” said Patel. “We lost by only three wickets.”

A schedule of the club’s upcoming games is available on its website.

Team members predict that as Asians increasingly migrate to different parts of the world, cricket is going to increase in popularity. The International Cricket Council recently launched a shorter form of the game called a “20/20” tournament, Jain said.

“The 20/20 tournament makes the game more offensive and more entertaining as it brings result in about three hours, Jain said. “This could get popular very fast in countries like the USA.”

And Rutgers’ cricket club members are working hard to set up a team that will grow with the sport’s recognition. “We’ve been working on getting this team together since September,” said Coach Pandya. “Everyone is welcome to join. We want to get everyone out there playing.”