Indian and Pakistani women join hands to ensure construction of cricket stadium in Barcelona

One doesn't associate cricket with Barcelona. However, a group of young Indian and Pakistani women has ensured a cricket stadium will be built in the football-mad city.

Barcelona recently put in a proposal for a €30m sports facilities package to vote. Much to the disbelief of authorities, out of 822 projects, the Catalan capital chose a cricket ground.

Hifsa Butt, 20, the eldest of her group, revealed the story behind the scarcely-believable accomplishment.

The women had little idea about cricket, akin to their Spanish gym teacher. However, Butt's father took the onus on himself and taught them the basics of the foreign game.

“It all began three years ago in secondary school when the gym teacher said: ‘Right, we’re going to start a cricket club out of school hours. Who’s up for it?...He (her father) taught us a lot about how to play and then we got started on our own account,” Butt told The Guardian.

Football-mad Barcelona votes to build cricket oval. By @stephenburgen https://t.co/ke3i0pzXsS

— Guardian sport (@guardian_sport) May 23, 2021

The women together started an indoor cricket league and until recently were also utilizing a baseball ground on Montjuïc as their makeshift cricket field.

Now, as Butt says, their goal is to go pro.

“We want to play proper cricket, with 11 players, with a hard ball and not a tennis ball like we use indoors. So now we need a proper cricket pitch with real, not synthetic, grass," she remarked.

Finding the right place in Barcelona difficult but women's group firm

This is a great story of the hard work put in by a girls' cricket club in Barcelona to win a public poll for the construction of new facilities https://t.co/O3h3dvLdrQ

— Rick Eyre on cricket (@rickeyrecricket) May 23, 2021

Damien McMullen, the Australian president of Barcelona International Cricket Club, was quoted as saying in the same report that finding adequate space for a competitive cricket ground is 'impossible'.

However, after the all-women group's efforts, a dirt field on Montjuïc, a shallow hill with a flat top, is set to be converted into an Astroturf cricket pitch at the cost of €1.2m.

Hifsa Butt further added that apart from making strides in the sport, they want to be its ambassadors in Barcelona and beyond.

We’re from Pakistan and India, countries that know about cricket, but we also want to spread the news about the game in Spain,” she signed off.

Barcelona has over 20 cricket teams encompassing over 700 players, mostly from New Zealand, South Africa, England, India, Australia, Pakistan and Bangladesh. This upcoming cricket stadium might be a major fillip for their skills and cricket's future in Europe.

Great news for cricket in Barcelona. I've been playing in Madrid for years and @jonwoodward1975 even longer. We would love developments such as this for @CricketInMadrid - Let us know if you would ever be interested in hearing our story...

— Richard Wilson (@Richwilson1991) May 23, 2021