Exploring Life & Business with Amit Sharma of Nashville Cricket Association

 

Today we’d like to introduce you to Amit Sharma

Hi Amit, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?

Hi my name is Amit Sharma and I am currently serving as the President of Nashville Cricket Association. I have been part of the club since 2010 and have been an active member since.Since the history of Nashville Cricket Association (NCA) goes way before I joined the club, the club chairman, Arun Paul, helped provide some context to the history of the club and it’s induction and the people involved.

Even though Cricket is a very popular sport in South Asian countries like India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan, and in England, where it originated from, and other countries like Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the Caribbean, it still hadn’t picked up popularity in the Unites States in the late 90s and early 2000s. In TN there was none. A handful of cricket enthusiastic graduate students from the South Asian community and few others, who missed the game of cricket in the Middle TN area, wanted to start cricket in Nashville. This led to them working with Metro Parks to get a field in Whites Creek High School and start playing cricket with around 10-12 other players led by one of the former leaders of NCA in Hitesh Talati (Former Chairman of NCA Board) and Ayaz Ahmed who served NCA in the initial periods as one of its leaders. In 2002, our current Chairman of the board in Arun Paul joined the team and Nashville Cricket Association (NCA) as a club was formed. There were also other Senior team members like Sujay Kumar who is the current Vice President who were part of this initial setup of the club in 2002.

Arun Paul became the captain of the club and for the next 4 years there were games between two other teams in Whites Creek ground. In 2006 NCA worked with Metro Park of Nashville to build a center astro turf pitch and once the pitch was created and the right sized cricket field was created, NCA along with two other teams created the Tennessee Cricket League (TCL), the first cricket ball league in Nashville in 2006. This league grew to 6 teams and NCA President Arun led the TCL board for 8 years as its President and Srimanth Brindavanam, current Vice Chairman of the NCA board joined and became captain of the NCA team in 2008. Other players like Amit Sharma, current President of NCA, Gideon Packianathan, current Secretary, Kishan Gottumukkala, current treasurer joined the club during the 2008-2010 timeframes and helped grow the team and club and the focus for the club during those times was to play cricket and competitive league games and invite more players and teams to participate in the league.

We feel proud for those small group of people whose hard work and dedication 20 years ago paved way for a big cricket community in the Nashville area today.

Around the 2013 period the TCL league lost a few teams due to migration of players to other states due to work and the league had to close. This is when NCA Leadership came up with anidea of kickstarting a tennis ball tournament so that we can get more players and get the fear of playing with a leather ball ease out and this idea led to the launch of Nashville Premier League(NPL) in 2014. It was inaugurated by Wayne Evans from Metro Parks and Recreation and NPL led by our current Vice Chairman Srimanth Brindavanam has become a marquee tournament and started as 12 team tournaments to almost 42 teams just before the COVID pandemic in 2019. The advent of NPL there were players who came out to play cricket and slowly the interest generated made those teams to want a Cricket ball league started again and in 2015 under the leadership of Srimanth Brindavanam as President the Music City Cricket League (MCCL) was started and close to 8 teams signed up. This league grew to 16 teams leather ball cricket league in 2019 as Nashville also exploded in terms of becoming a tech hub and many companies started coming into Nashville and brought in many more players. NCA as a club also brought in sponsors to support NPL tournament and since 2016, KANINI Technologies are the title sponsors for NPL. Around the 2016 period when NCA looking at how the landscape was changing, and interest of players started peaking towards cricket decided to start the NCA Youth Training Academy to train and develop the cricket talent from a young age and for the first time pioneered a Cricket Academy in Nashville. This academy that started with 10 boys in the age groups of 10 through 12 grew every year and at one point in 2022 had 40-50 boys training in different age groups.

There are multiple cricket leagues today and training academies and NCA is proud that it has created, developed and spread cricket in the past two decades, which was its vision and continues to do that.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?

It certainly wasn’t an easy journey. There were several factors that caused challenges in this journey.

Cricket needs a good size field to play, which was hard to find as most of the fields were built for baseball and football. Also creating a cricket pitch and Astro turf was expensive.

Playing Cricket requires lot of gears and accessories which is not only expensive but also access to get them around was not easy. There were not many stores in the country and many of the times we had to get them shipped from India. Funding was another hurdle. With small group of original members, the annual membership fee, didn’t suffice the expense. Also most of members were working professionals, and it was difficult to prioritize and find time to play, and this lead to not enough games to play due to less turnaround.

Things are much favorable today. We are still mostly self funded with annual membership fee, with students exempted. We have been also blessed with funding from a few sponsors, of who we are very thankful as that helps us in doing extra things for the club and cricket. With innovative and first of its kind tournaments, NCA has also created an avenue of revenue flowing into the organization from the various tournaments NCA conducts as well as training academy fees.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Nashville Cricket Association?

Nashville Cricket Association, more popularly known as NCA, has been the ambassador of cricket in the Middle TN area from the time cricket was still a growing sport in TN. From it’s inception till date, NCA has always encouraged, promoted and supported the game of cricket in the area, by providing competitive cricket but at the same time emphasizing in enjoying the game. We started the first amateur league, Nashville Premier League, which laid further interest and popularity of cricket among more people in Nashville. NPL has grown, thanks to Raja Yeruva, who primarily led this for the past 3 years who is the NPL Director of operations and his team of volunteers in Anil Verma, Lal Parihar, Bala Indukuri, Raghu Vuyyuru, Nitin Goalla, Nikhil Tummala, Abhinav Gaddam and Ujjwal Chowdary. This is the team on the ground and ranging from ground administration, Social media interactions, team selections, Media Content creations, CricClubs administration and Schedules are managed by this team. Therefore, as you can sense that NCA is an organization that grooms talent and leadership giving a chance to all team members to take up program participation and grow themselves as leaders. As a club, we have also laid opportunities for young talents by starting Youth Cricket under the supervision and direction of Arun Paul, who was also the Volunteer Youth coordinator for Nashville and Middle TN regions for 5 years appointed by USA Cricket where we train and nurture children as young as 5 years old. Arun Paul also was part of the USA Cricket South Zone Hub league Committee and board for two years and this was a venture created by USA Cricket for development of young talent for cricket in regions and managed locally. NCA have organized women’s league to promote cricket for women in Nashville. The love and passion of women of Nashville in cricket is unmatchedand this is still developing, and the vision is to have a Women’s team from Nashville.

The club has now an elected organizing body, with Board members with Chairman and Vice Chairman, and the Executive team comprised of President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer. They work together to run the club in an organized and smooth fashion. We as club thrive to take the sport of cricket to greater heights in the middle TN area and lead way for young talents, who one day may play professional cricket for the United States. As a cricket club, we not only promote and support cricket but we also value our members, who are the integral part of the club. NCA is a family where we share friendship and camaraderie among the members and respect each and every individual irrespective of their ethnic, religious or professional background. We organize activities outside cricket for the members and their families, including an annual holiday party. We also partake in volunteer opportunities as team and individuals. We encourage new talents and individuals, who share the club’s philosophy to respect and treat everyone as their own, to join us and play competitive cricket and yet enjoy the game.

In 2024 NCA also have created Franchisee cricket in Nashville and the first edition is happening in June 2024. This is an Owner based Franchisee tournament and this is the first of its kind in Nashville and Tennessee regions. This provides a platform for cricket talent not only to enjoy the sports but also get compensated for their participation and performance.

 

What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?

More than a learning lesson it was an adaptation. Cricket in the Nashville area has increased a lot with more people moving in when the city grew. That meant we needed more grounds and more leagues to play. We worked with other cricket clubs and enthusiasts to acquire another cricket field at Mainstream Drive, downtown area and had to add another tennis ball league, NPL Blast, to provide more games for teams. Also the competition increased, so we had to keep ourselves up to the mark by bringing the focus on fitness.

Our members come from different ethnic, religious, cultural backgrounds and even from different countries. So diversity inclusion was critical for club. We had to quickly adapt, embrace and cultivate a culture where all members can bring their best selves.

We have also learned the importance of family and friends becoming part of the cricket journey for a player and administrators and creating the culture of community and being connected as one family with sport as the nucleus of it. NCA is proud today with close to 50 players and their families and friends. We have been able to establish a community that is growing and spreading the sport of cricket.

 

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.nashvillecricketassociation.org/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nashvillecricket
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nashvillecricketassociation