This past week, Cricket Arizona had the opportunity to speak with Mayur Jain, one of the organizers of the ever growing and popular format of tennis ball cricket in the Valley.

Arizona Tennis Ball Cricket, or AZTBC for short, started in 2004 as a mix mash of teams that played a very informal type of tournament. Now, over a dozen years later, AZTBC has grown into one of the premier cricketing leagues in Arizona.

While they don’t play leather ball cricket, the tennis balls are cricket specific, sent directly from the manufacturer in India. In fact, that’s one of the best parts that the AZTBC does, is what it provides its members.

The AZTBC is a non-profit meaning they are not in it to make a dollar. That may very well be the case with the other leagues in Arizona but the fact that AZTBC is a non-for-profit means several things.

One is, it returns all excess monies back to the teams. Some years there is no money to return but most times than not, AZTBC has a little bit of reserve cash that is returned to the teams to do with as they like.

This is also very transparent as they share their financials every year with anyone who is interested. Their books are quite literally, an open book.

This begs the question, what does the AZTBC do with the monies?

Lots, really. Besides the aforementioned cricket tennis balls, they also provide an awards banquet filled with food and trophies. One of the biggest things they do provide, however, is the team t-shirts or uniforms. These t-shirts, coupled with the cricket tennis balls is a fantastic and wonderful thing that AZTBC provides its players.

Speaking of players, there has been continued growth in the league, substantially so.

This past year they had a record 15 teams with around 375 players registered to play. If that wasn’t enough, they also held their second plate tournament. The first incarnation of the plate tournament was met with mild enthusiasm whereas the second one, this past year, was a wild success matched only with the energy of newcomers and Plate Champions, Brahmi 11.

One of the more interesting aspects of the league is, how they make on the field decisions. All decisions that involve play, be they rules, format, etc., are all voted on by the captains of each team. This republican type of governance isn’t very common in the cricketing world and has provided a happy playing environment for all the players involved. This feeling of goodwill of AZTBC has now grown to four sponsors who are all receiving great ROI on their investment, according to Jain.

And finally, since they are tennis ball cricket they do have the luxury of playing under the lights, a Godsend during the Arizona summers.

Arizona Tennis Ball Cricket has grown plenty from its humble beginnings and if the past is any precedent, their future is looking extremely bright as well.