Dufferin Cricket Club establishes home base in Beeton

August 24, 2023 · 0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

The Dufferin Cricket Club is hoping to start playing games at Mel Mitchell Athletic Field in Beeton on a regular basis.

The Town of New Tecumseth has already carved out a pitch on the grass at the south end of the park, with plans to create another one on the north side.

The Dufferin Cricket Club is putting a team together, including one from Honda Canada, where several of the players work.

Members of the club met at the cricket pitch on Sunday, Aug. 20, to have some practice and announce the club will be starting to play at the park.

“Today is a ground-breaking ceremony to announce the Dufferin Cricket Club launching cricket at Mel Mitchell Field in Beeton,” explained Club president Anand Jagdeo. “As far as I am aware, there never has been a cricket game played on these grounds. We are working with the Mayor of New Tecumseth and his council, our goal is to make New Tecumseth the hub of cricket in the north, because they have all the facilities to play. It’s not exactly what we need because it’s a grass wicket, so we can’t use the hard ball, so we are using a hard tennis ball. Eventually the plan is to put in an artificial turf wicket.”

The club has around 60 members.

“Unfortunately, not everyone lives in the county,” Anand said. “This event is just to create awareness and let people see what we are about to bring to this town.”

There is another cricket pitch in Alliston at G.A. Wright Field.

“We are building a team at Honda where I work, with the goal to eventually participate in a corporate league,” Anand said. “Next year we will be larger. We’ll have a proper pitch.”

Ward 5 councillor, Marc Biss, said the club is a good addition to the local sports scene.

“In the Town of New Tecumseth we have two cricket clubs that are established. We now have the Dufferin Cricket club which is utilizing our facilities. All the cricket clubs are open to all the members of the public in New Tecumseth, so anyone in New Tecumseth can join. They are bringing their expertise to our fields so people in this town and come and sign up. It will be allowing local players to stay local so they don’t have to leave town to play cricket.”

The club plans on having regular league play next year.