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By Peter Della Penna

“Remember to protect the wickets,” Vinny Romano told his players in the John Bowne team huddle right before they went out to bat in a New York PSAL match for the first time. “I don’t want any of you guys going out there trying to swing for fours and sixes early on.”

The 60-year-old Romano has coached golf, volleyball and wrestling in his many years at John Bowne High School in the Flushing section of Queens, but this year he’s taking on a new role to help support a group of students desperate to play cricket.

“I never ever thought in this country I’d be able to do this,” said Tenille Rajkumarsingh, who came to America when she was 12 and is the only female playing for John Bowne. “I used to play in Trinidad for my school and I came here and they didn’t have cricket. So when I found out they had cricket in my senior year, I got excited.”

Image (above) - Coach Vinny Romano (center), gives his John Bowne team some motivation and final instructions before they went out to bat for the first time against Bronx High School of Science. [Courtesy: Peter Della Penna/DreamCricket]

John Bowne played its first ever match on Monday afternoon against Bronx High School of Science to start the fourth season of cricket in the PSAL. There was overwhelming interest at the school for several years and the students had support from the school’s athletic director but still had to overcome some obstacles to get registered as a varsity sport.

“I said okay if you really want a team, I need to see the interest, I need you to get students to sign up so they went and did that,” said Desiree Alloggiamento, the athletic director at John Bowne. “They had gotten a list of about 25 students, first names, last names, ID numbers. They were really serious. I asked them what experience they had and they said they’ve all played before. They came to me almost every single day and wanted to know ‘Are we getting a team?’ So it’s really because of the students.”

“My principal and I discussed it. We requested a team with the PSAL. We were told that we actually were rejected at first due to financial reasons on the PSAL’s behalf. So the students were disappointed.” But after William Grady High School dropped the sport for 2011, it opened the door for John Bowne to take their place.

“Then the PSAL called us and said that we were able to get in the league and would you want to still do it,” said Alloggiamento. “I said absolutely because these kids like I said they were coming to me all the time.”

“They’ve given me a lot of support, the school principal, the athletic director,” said Romano. “In less than a month’s time, I had to recruit players, buy uniforms, buy equipment, get equipment sent. They gave me great practice space ahead of other teams, I hate to say it, because we’re a new sport and they wanted it to get off the ground. Whatever I needed, they just said go spend it and you’ll be reimbursed.”

The John Bowne team arrived early at Kissena Park in Queens on Monday afternoon, champing at the bit to get on the field. Bronx HS of Science didn’t arrive until 30 minutes after the scheduled 4 p.m. start time but the match finally got underway with John Bowne getting good contributions from Vish Pathania with 32 at number three as well as Hammad Hussain scoring 35 not out at number nine, including the first six in John Bowne’s history in the 18th over. They finished at 148 for 9 after 20 overs.

Image (right) - Hammad Hussain (13), hits a delivery through midwicket on his way to top score with 35 not out for John Bowne. [Courtesy: Peter Della Penna/DreamCricket]

Due to the late start, the second innings didn’t begin until after 7 p.m., so it was near certain that the final result was going to be determined by run rate once darkness set in. Bronx HS of Science had trouble scoring off the bat, but the John Bowne bowlers made the game close with the amount of wides conceded, 29 in eight overs before the match was called. However, two tidy overs from Ritvik Iyer sealed the match for John Bowne. He came on as the fifth bowler to be used, but took 4 for 11 in his two overs of seam bowling to pin Bronx HS of Science back at 53 for 5 when the match was called and John Bowne was declared the winner after finishing with a better run rate.

“It feels good,” said Ali Shahbaz, John Bowne’s captain. Shahbaz and his teammates didn’t know what to expect prior to the first game, but have been filled with tremendous optimism seeing how it all went. “We thought that we weren’t gonna win because Bronx High School’s been playing for three years. Now since we have a win, this was like a practice match for us. We want to go ahead and not lose any games at all. We want to make it to the finals.”

Coach Romano was equally nervous before the day started, but gained some insight from his team’s first outing.

“I just didn’t want to embarrass myself,” said a smiling Romano at the end of the day. “I could judge by baseball skills and similar skills that cricket has with other sports, but I never watched anybody else play cricket so I didn’t know what to expect from our kids. I’m very happy they produced.”

After only one match, Romano has seen the influence that having cricket established at John Bowne can have on the community.

“Because I’m also a Coordinator of Student Activities, I hope the student participation at all activities in the school increases. I think by getting different ethnic communities involved in different sports, that would only help the school to better itself,” said Romano. “I think it would be a valuable attraction for a lot of the communities. One of the gentleman I saw who was watching the game today, he told me, ‘I was thinking about sending my kids to John Bowne, but now that they have a cricket team, I’m definitely going to send them to John Bowne’ because he lives right in the neighborhood.”