Makeshift gear and nowhere to play? No problem for Cape Breton's cricket diehards

A stick, a sponge ball and a patch of grass — that's all some cricket players on Cape Breton Island need to get a game off the ground. 

They scrounge up whatever makeshift gear they can and play in parking lots, baseball fields, even on walking trails. 

There's a huge passion for the bat and ball game on an island where the big sports are softball, hockey and basketball. For many, cricket is more than a game; it's a little piece of home.

"I miss my home all the time. [Cricket] reminds me of my friends actually because we used to play there and we used to have fun. That comes to mind," said Magnus Philip, a Cape Breton University student from India. 

And he's not alone in his love for the game. Philip believes there are hundreds of people on the island that want to play, mostly international students from 50 different countries who've come to Sydney in droves to study in recent years. 

"Even I got random calls on my phone asking, 'Buddy, I hear you guys are playing. Can I join? Can I play?'" he said.

"They all want to play, but we don't have the facilities."

Most players didn't bring their cricket gear to Cape Breton simply because there were no cricket grounds to play on. But as time dragged on, they missed the game so much they started to make their own gear. 

Locals have even stepped up to help.

When a neighbour saw Philip and his friends playing cricket with a stick, he made them a cricket bat. It's flat, wooden, and — after a few rough games — now wrapped in duct tape. 

"The neighbour when he saw us, he was so nice and graceful," said Athul Panicker, 27, who is also a CBU student. 

"It does the job because we play with the sponge ball, so it doesn't really matter because we don't hit it really hard. If it's a real cricket ball, it's going to be broken in two pieces."

Panicker was four years old when he got his first cricket bat from his father. Growing up, Panicker played cricket any chance he had.

If he had any breaks during the school day, he would squeeze in a game. His weekends were all cricket, all the time. 

"Cricket is like a native game over there in India. Everybody plays cricket. It was brought by the British people, so all of the Indian people are supposed to play cricket, that's a rule over there," Panicker said with a laugh. 

"So all of the schools are playing cricket, everybody is behind cricket. Not much of soccer or basketball is famous in India, everybody is behind cricket." 

Cricket used to be popular in Cape Breton too — but it was a long time ago. 

The first written references to cricket on the island date back to 1863, according to John Reid, a retired history professor at Saint Mary's University in Halifax.

For the last few years, Reid has been researching sports history. 

There used to be cricket teams all over Cape Breton, making it one of the most popular team sports in Nova Scotia. 

Reid said cricket is often considered a snobby sport played by the rich, but that's not entirely accurate. It was historically popular among coal miners and steelworkers, as well.  

"People from totally different social backgrounds would share the playing surface together ... in some cases they played on the same team. The Sydney cricket club is interesting because it co-opted working-class players even though it began as an elite club. Sometimes uneasily there was a real degree of social diversity," said Reid. 

Cricket's popularity in Cape Breton peaked just before the First World War and began to fade after the war ended, partly because the men who used to play were injured or killed. The sport was also overshadowed by the growing popularity of baseball, said Reid.

Still, he said cricket continued to be played on playgrounds into the 1960s by kids who adjusted the rules to their own liking. 

That kind of cricket is exactly what's being played around the island today as Panicker and his friends adapt the game to their new home. 

"We don't got any place to play around here, so we make our own place to play," he said. "We kept the wicket as a waste bag, and if you hit the car or something that's going to be out.

"We make our own rules."