Barcelona will have a cricket pitch next season thanks to the initiative of the 11 Barcelona women's cricket team, which presented its project in the call for the first participatory budgets of the Barcelona City Council. The proposal received 2,441 votes and became the initiative with the most support among the more than 800 submitted.
The design of the project for the new cricket field has had the involvement and approval of the women's team and the Catalan Cricket Federation. The executive project has just been approved in order to initiate the procedures to begin the reform of the Julià de Capmany field, in Montjuïc.
The work, with a budget of 1.6 million euros from the participatory budget fund, will involve the comprehensive reform of the field, with the planting of special grass for the practice of this sport. The pitch lines will also be marked, the battue tunnel will be created and lighting, changing rooms and a perimeter fence will be installed.
The Barcelona women's team is the only one in Spain and its objective is to establish itself as the 11th Catalan cricket team. It is part of the Críquet Jove BCN sports program, a project promoted by the Center for African and Intercultural Studies (CEAI) and the Fundació Esport i Educació de Barcelona (FEEB), which since 2012 has been part of the Convivim Esportivament program of the City Council to promote the practice of cricket as a sport of identity and reference for a large community represented in the city.
This sport came to the city thanks to migrant communities and has become a meeting place for them. Cricket is a very popular sport in Pakistan, India or Bangladesh, but although 2.3% of the city's residents are of these nationalities (with a representation of 16% in Raval or 6.5% in Poble Sec) do not have any field in the city.
