Other Sports

Los Angeles –  The Compton Cricket Club is made up of Latino and African-American youths who have found in the sport a way to avoid the risk of getting sucked into the violent world of gangs.

Fourteen years after being founded and after making three tours of England, the members of the club are just about to leave for Australia, where they will be goodwill ambassadors and will collect funds for the victims of the recent devastating floods in the Australian state of Queensland.

"We're starting this team with the boys who were in danger of hooking up with the gangs and getting involved in subversive activities on the streets of Compton, with the aim of creating responsible citizens and improving their lives through the game," film producer Katy Haber, the co-founder of the team, told Efe.

The club was started in 1995 as the Homies and Popz of Compton and was the brainchild of Haber and activist Ted Hayes, who decided that the civics lessons that cricket provided were perfect for the disordered lives of the socially abandoned youths of Los Angeles.

Over time, the success of the program, which has managed to help a number of youths find new directions in their lives, became such that the club emerged as an option for other disadvantaged communities.

Emidio Cazarez is a Latino who has been playing the sport for 14 years, and he says he is thankful that it has taken him away from the daily problems that confront him and others in the community.

"In my case, I believe that it certainly has helped me. When you're very young you do things you shouldn't, you get involved in problems with pranks, which is the only think you know how to do. God and my family have helped me entertain myself and have set rules for me," he said.

Although Emidio also confessed to being a soccer fan, he admitted that cricket's characteristics make it an ideal discipline for a person's formative years.

With the sport, Emidio and his friends in Compton not only live productive lives, but they also have had the opportunity to travel and get to know places and people they had only imagined.

"I've gone to places I never thought I'd go: to Buckingham Palace, to meet Prince William. Who would have thought that I'd be there drinking tea with him," he said about his visit to England in 2009.

The new tour will also be a perfect chance for the players to promote a rap song entitled "Balas," which has been placed on YouTube with the idea of recruiting new team members, speaking about the advantages of the sport in the language of the streets.