Campbelltown Lions Cricket Club

Who would have thought what had started as simply a game in the park, would turn into a fully fledged and dedicated team which has stayed together for over a decade.

Campbelltown Lions, formerly known as Pakistani Campbelltown Cricket Club, had its first friendly intra-team game in late 1998. The match was played amongst 3 families which included the Chaudhry’s, the Inayat’s and the Aslam’s. The cricket was not fiercely competitive at this stage, and was simply a hit in the park with a bat and a taped ball, give the player’s young age. This continued for several months before the entry of one our more famous star players Albert. This is the stage at where the club also started to take shape, with regular weekend intra-team matches scheduled at either Third Avenue, Macquarie fields or Memorial oval, Ingleburn.

Slowly as the cricket progressed, Albert dropped a bombshell on the team, and started to slowly convince us that we should be playing with a leather cricket ball. Personally at that time it felt like a daunting task, having never played with a hardball properly before, and having had a bleeding nose from my only previous attempt.

One beautifully warm autumn afternoon at Third Avenue, it was eventually decided that we are going to trial playing with a cricket ball. There were concerns raised, over the safety of the little ones, namely being myself and Aamir. I still remember padding up for the first time. My guards included leg pads, gloves, arm pad, box, thigh guard, chest guard and an old school white helmet owned by Nadeem. As I made my way to bat, I found it quite difficult to move because of the huge pads, and all I remember is Albert saying “Atif looks like mini Javed Miandad” (Most probably due to the helmet). After this we never looked back and the cricket really took off.