It's the world's second most popular sport behind Soccer.

With terms like "Agricultural Shot", "Cow Corner", "Cross the Rope" or "Flat Track Bully", Cricket is a mystery to many in the southwest but is enjoyed by an estimated 2.5 billion people globally in roughly 105 countries.

Now two Swift Current men are hoping to introduce the sport to a wider audience in the city, starting with a new Cricket Pitch on the south side at the Windscape Festival site.

Viju Vijayan and Najeet Singh have been playing Cricket with friends in the city for a while, and thanks to some help from the city, they now have an official pitch to not only call their own but to expand the sport to others.

"There are a few guys from Zimbabwe, Australia, South Africa, Pakistan, Bangladesh. They used to play with us before COVID, but with COVID we've not been playing for so many months."

The two men held an exhibition event on the weekend looking to introduce the sport to other interested residents.

The plan, they say, is to hopefully see enough action to form a team that could travel to other cities in the province to compete, and join the wider Cricket community that has been starting to flourish in the province in cities like Moose Jaw, Regina and Saskatoon.

They're sure that if they play in Swift Current for a while, they can create a team that is able to go toe to toe with those larger, more established centres.

But the first requirement is to gauge the interest, and so far they say that doesn't seem to be a problem.

"We got a few calls and emails already. They were interested. They were asking are you guys going to teach us how to play and things like that. That's something that we're going to do as well. If anyone wants to come and join us and they want to learn while we are playing here, some of us can show how."

So far, they say they have enough players in the city to put together two or three teams of 11, with the hopes to take the best players from all of them to create a team that would compete provincially.