Most Iowans couldn't tell a googly from a sandshoe crusher.

But for a group of immigrants from South Asia the terms are as common as curveball or slider.

They are part of a growing community of cricket players in the Des Moines metro. A league that formed three years ago by a handful of friends has grown to more than 300 players.

Most hail from countries where cricket is king or at least a close runner-up to soccer: places like India, Nepal, Pakistan and the West Indies where British colonialism spread the sport's popularity.

Playing here lets cricketers stay connected to a piece of their homeland and meet new friends.

"We were missing that feeling of playing cricket," said Mukesh Tayal, who formed the Iowa Premier League with friends in 2014. It now has 20 teams.

The league plays a shortened version of the game that is more accessible to players and spectators, Tayal said. A traditional cricket game can last an entire day. Iowa Premier games typically last three to four hours.

"I cannot see myself anymore without the feeling that I get" (from playing cricket with friends), he said.

Another league, the Heartland Cricket League founded in 2003, plays more traditional matches. There are two Des Moines-based teams, about 40 players total, that travel to tournaments across Iowa and Nebraska nearly every weekend in the spring and summer.

"You see a lot of immigrants coming and trying to reconnect with their roots and play this game," said Sukhen Chatterjee, captain of the Knights Cricket Club.

Many of the players in both leagues, like Tayal and Chatterjee, are IT professionals. Others are doctors or work in technology-related fields.

There were more than 4,300 people who identified as Asian Indian living in Polk and Dallas counties in 2015, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. More than half of them lived in West Des Moines, where the city plans to build a second cricket pitch this year.

"We're finding that people coming here to West Des Moines to work at some of our companies are coming from countries that play cricket like we play soccer in America," West Des Moines Parks Director Sally Ortgies said. "It's important to us to provide a space for people playing that sport."

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The Knights Cricket Club was the first formally organized club in the Des Moines area. It began traveling to Omaha, Neb., for matches in 2000 since there wasn't a pitch in the metro.

It took the club three years to save enough money to install a 22-yard by 10-foot strip of concrete at Holiday Park, 1701 Railroad Ave. in West Des Moines. It was the first pitch in the state. There are now six.

The pitch — similar to the strip between the pitcher and the catcher in baseball — is where most of the game's action takes place. Players lay carpet over the concrete pitch, which is circled by a grass infield and outfield.

West Des Moines will add the city's second pitch at Valley View Park, 255 81st St., by the end of the summer.

The Knights are part of the eight to 10 team Heartland Cricket League, which also has teams in Ames, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City and Omaha.

The league plays 30 overs per 11-person team. Each over has six pitches. A traditional match uses a hard leather ball with players in full protective gear. Like baseball, the team scoring the most runs wins.

"Both the teams in Des Moines have more members than we had in the past," Chatterjee said, "but the other league is growing quicker."

The upstart Iowa Premier League plays a condensed version of the game using a softer ball that requires less gear. Its season runs from April to October.

"We all mostly were in love with cricket when we were growing up," said Tayal, who immigrated to the U.S. from northern India 18 years ago. "Suddenly when this shorter form came out, I couldn’t hold myself back. I had to find time to play."

West Des Moines Water Works has agreed to pay $7,000 for the new concrete pitch at Valley View Park, Ortgies said. It will sit alongside three soccer fields and four baseball backstops. The utility is digging a deep water well at Holiday Park that has closed the city's existing pitch.

Once the utility is done with its well construction, there will be two active cricket pitches in the western suburb.

And if the sport continues to grow, Iowans may have to get used to words like yorker and zooter in the same way their parents and grandparents adapted to terms like corner kick and slide tackle when soccer's popularity took off in the 1970s.

Cricket clubs

To learn more about the Knights Cricket Club visit knightscricket.org. The Knights and the Iowa Bulls play in the Heartland Cricket League, cricclubs.com/HeartlandCricketLeague.

Learn more about the Iowa Premier League at cricclubs.com/IowaPremierLeague or email Mukesh Tayal at tayalm@gmail.com.