Sain has never been known for playing cricket, however, recent reports suggest that the country’s one of the most popular cities, Barcelona will be building a cricket ground thanks to an upwelling of public support for a women’s team. The city hall of Barcelona asked citizens last month to choose an initiative as part of a 30 million euro ($35 million) investment package in new facilities and improvements to public spaces.

They will be spending as many as .2 million euros ($1.4 million) on a cricket pitch finished first in the voting among 184 proposals. It can be considered as a big win for a sport largely unknown in Spain is thanks to a campaign led by a group of young women, mostly first-generation Spaniards, some of the Indian and Pakistani immigrants living in working-class suburbs of the city. What started by word of mouth soon garnered a lot of eyeballs once it caught the attention of the local media.

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Talking about the same, cricketer player, Nadia Mustafa said, “It’s a dream come true to have won the vote after all the effort we put in. We spent weeks encouraging people to vote for our project so we could win. And in the end, we were able to get the first cricket field in Barcelona for us to play and train.”

Besides the pitch, the project includes changing and storage rooms, lights, and other amenities related to cricket. Barcelona has a lot of people of Indian and Pakistan origin, and there are some 400 cricketers in Barcelona divided among 25 men’s and women’s teams. 

But the Mediterranean city doesn’t have facilities for this still exotic sport. Instead, an empty parking lot or field has to do for those looking to show their batting and bowling skills. Now, the cricketers will have their own pitch, right next to Barcelona’s Olympic Stadium on a hill overlooking the city.

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Team coach, Shahbaz Sauqad said, “We are happy. Soon, in a year or a year and a half, we will have our own field here in Barcelona. We won’t have to think of getting cars and means of transportation to play elsewhere. We will have our field here.”