N.C. State’s club cricket team has come a long way since its formation 12 years ago. In the past few years alone, its recognition and success have greatly progressed, leading to its No. 1 conference seeding.

Samiuddin Syed came to N.C. State from India in July 2006 as a graduate student receiving his doctorate in civil engineering and joined the team soon after his arrival. Now he is the team’s president. Given his experience with N.C. State’s team, he has been able to see how much it has changed and has helped the program to grow by attending tournaments and recruiting students to play for the Pack.

“I’ve seen gradual progress since joining the club,” Syed said. “When I joined, there was mostly returning players, so we started looking out for people who were very good at cricket. We basically scouted for N.C. State’s cricket club.”

The team certainly has become more successful in its conference, the Mid-Atlantic Cricket Conference, or MACC. In 2006, the team was ranked 29th. In 2007, it made its way up to 8th place. In 2008, the team was 9th. Now, since the season’s beginning in May of this year, the team is in the No. 1 seed.

The club team is mainly composed of international students who are native players of the sport. However, the team tries to promote its sport to everyone. Swapnil Gupta, a second year student earning his PhD in mechanical engineering, is competing in his second season since his arrival from Mumbai, India, and has been playing the sport since 7 to ten years ago. Gupta emphasized the prominence of the sport in India, stating that in his culture, most people begin playing from as early as fifth grade.

“When I joined the club, there were people from Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan,” Syed said.

Since then, he has also seen members from Sri Lanka, South Africa, England and the Caribbean – “Mostly from nations who play cricket,” he said.

Syed seeks to inform students of the cultural importance of the sport abroad.

“If we wanted to have fun, we’d go out and play cricket,” Syed said. “It’d be like baseball or any other sport for the U.S.”

Syed accredits the team’s 11-1 season record to “sheer hard work” and “good spirits.”

“[The team is] very focused,” Syed said. “Last year we lost in semifinals. We pretty much decided that this season we want to go all the way.”

While the club cricket team is proud of its accomplishments, its main motive is to promote the sport across N.C. State’s campus and increase its popularity in the States. Syed also seeks to appeal to the students and the university alike, hoping for increased support.

“We know we are a new team and that it will take time, but it would be good if the university could foster it,” Syed said. “We are trying to reach to all sorts of people who are interested in playing Cricket. [The sport] is catching up in the United States.”

The cricket team will be hosting its own championship match on Oct. 31 on Lee Fields at 10:00 a.m.