“Wait, wasn’t this star-studded cricket tournament supposed to take place on a new field in east Oak Cliff, not at the University of Texas at Dallas?”
That was my first thought Sunday when I saw the full-page advertisement in The Dallas Morning News promoting world-class cricket and Coachella-style entertainment Oct. 4-14.
My memory was not playing tricks on me. The event was originally scheduled for southern Dallas, where the National Cricket League planned to build a million-dollar field in the Cadillac Heights area. How those plans unraveled since local politicians announced the original site — and made big promises of an economic windfall — is yet another drop in the bucket of Dallas City Hall dysfunction.
City leaders revealed in November they had landed the just-formed National Cricket League’s inaugural Sixty Strikes event. Their news conference focused on the much-needed economic shot the tournament would provide for this underserved area between I-35E and I-45.
Dallas Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Carolyn King Arnold said providing a tournament home to the league would spark prosperity for residents adjacent to the future Roland G. Parrish Park. “I want to make sure everyone understands the fact that this is a long-overdue investment in this community,” Arnold proclaimed.
Arun Agarwal, the league’s chairman and part-owner — and president of the Dallas park and recreation board — told the audience that equity played a big part in the site selection. “You can imagine, when the game gets played and there are thousands of people coming to watch it, what it will do to the economic development of this area.”
Fast-forward to August and — with no mention of the commitment to Cadillac Heights — the cricket league announced UTD in Richardson would host the event. Apparently, most of us missed that news or had forgotten the role southern Dallas had been promised.
I have doubts the cricket field would have provided an infusion of cash for Cadillac Heights. Ditto for whether area residents care about the sport — or even had a say in the plan. My concern is with a city bureaucracy that makes it near impossible to do business with Dallas. And with politicians who make big promises then hope no one remembers.
When I began digging for answers Monday, what I found lived up to the low expectations many of us have about the state of affairs at Dallas City Hall.
In this case, the cricket league leadership became so weary of dealing with the park and permitting departments, it took its business elsewhere. But not before a number of trees were cut down in the proposed footprint of the cricket field.
November’s news conference took place before the first public briefing was held on the plan to allow development of the southern Dallas land as a temporary home for the league and to host its first tournament, originally scheduled for May.
Agarwal recused himself from the deal-making, and the park board voted to move forward in early January. According to a memo from park director John Jenkins, a one-year development agreement was reached two months later, on March 8, between the city and cricket league for a temporary field and parking.
Dallas wasn’t required to pay anything; the league began pouring what would eventually be $350,000 into the project. But development could only go so far until the proper permits were issued, and, par for the course, the league didn’t get a green light until June 11, more than three months after the deal was signed.
By then, Agarwal had already postponed the inaugural tournament once, from May to October, to give the city more time as well as to avoid a conflict with another cricket tournament.
The league’s leadership was growing increasingly nervous, its commissioner, Haroon Lorgat, said. “Very little had happened for months, for whatever reason, we had delays in agreements and permits,” he said. “We needed to take urgent steps.”
By the time the city gave the “all clear” signal to the cricket league, Lorgat, who is based in Cape Town, South Africa, had already asked the ownership group to find alternative sites.
When the league contacted UTD, Lorgat was impressed by how quickly school officials made things happen. Working in the university’s favor was that it already had a cricket field. The property required at least $1 million in improvements, he said, but the team wasn’t working from scratch, which was the case in Cadillac Heights.
City spokesperson Rick Erickson told me there was confusion in early June when a permit processor in the engineering department told the league and the park department that traffic, drainage and utilities studies would be required in Cadillac Heights. Engineering supervisors later determined that was incorrect, Erickson said. He noted interim City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert’s move in late June to combine the departments overseeing permitting and urban planning is designed to prevent similar mistakes.
Although cricket is a fledgling game in the U.S., it’s second in popularity only to soccer worldwide. In addition to upgrading UTD’s cricket field, the league installed lighting and prepared the grounds for spectators. That included more than 2,000 bleacher seats and a tented VIP area.
This month’s tournament is being streamed for worldwide viewing and Sachin Tendulkar, often referred to as the “Michael Jordan of Cricket,” will present the championship trophy.
“I told the city [of Dallas] the potential this could bring,” Agarwal said, “but still we just could not make it work.”
Agarwal wouldn’t comment on whether the league has signed a long-term agreement with UTD. Given the investment that’s been made and initial success at the Richardson site, commissioner Lorgat said, it makes sense to remain there for the foreseeable future.
“My heart bleeds that this is not happening in the city of Dallas,” Agarwal told me. “But there was only so much that could be done.”
Park director Jenkins told me his staff held out hope into July that things would work out for the Cadillac Heights site. “Then we were notified they were going to move it somewhere else.”
The park department is focused on plans for development of Roland G. Parrish Park, and Jenkins said the improvements the cricket league made will jump-start construction of the planned athletic field. He said the trees the league removed before abandoning the project would have needed to be taken out for the planned field.
Jenkins went to UTD for Friday evening’s cricket matches and was impressed with what the league and school pulled off. “I’m not going to lie,” he said. “I looked at it and thought, ‘This is what we missed out on.’”
Jenkins said he’d like to negotiate the opportunity for a permanent cricket field with the league. “We are leaving our door open for that opportunity.”
Paul Quinn College president Michael Sorrell, whose campus is located south of Cadillac Heights, has witnessed decades of broken promises across southern Dallas. When he and I talked Monday about the collapse of the cricket plan, Sorrell cut to the real issue: Despite how hard bureaucracy makes it to get things done, leaders must understand each failure eats away at people’s hope.
It’s not about a cricket facility or another promise of better financial times, he said, but something more fundamental.
“Hope is a precious commodity,” Sorrell said. “To time and time again be disappointed — it is a signal that things just might not work out for you. That’s where the real tragedy is in this.”
