By Gurmukh Singh

Toronto,March 4 (IANS) After getting official recognition as national sport from the Canadian government in 2008, cricket in Canada has now got its first winter league.

Launched here by the Cricket Champions League, the league has drawn a huge response from the South Asian community.

It features 14 teams, including three women's teams, and will run till April 24. Called 'Cricket for Haiti,' it will donate all its money to the victims of the January earthquake in Haiti.

Interestingly, it is the first league in the world where cricket is being played indoors, and women pitting against boys.

League promoters have turned the event into a South Asian carnival by using emails, going on radio and TV, dropping fliers at grocery stores, temples and gurdwaras, and convassing in the community to enrol boys and girls for the event.

The promoters, headed by Indian-born Atul Ahuja, former CEO of Cricket Canada , say their aim is to use the winter months to take the sport to new cities of the country.

"We have got a huge response. Now that we have got the status of national sport from the government, leagues are the way to develop cricket in Canada ,'' Ahuja told IANS.

"Since we have a growing South Asian and Caribbean community in Canada who follow cricket, not NHL (National Hockey League), cricket has a bright future in this country.

"As the winter here is very long here, the league will provide continuity in skill development for our boys and women,'' said Ahuja.

"Hopefully, we will soon take cricket to every corner of Canada by replicating the Toronto experiment everywhere,'' he said.

Rita Jethi, promoter and former member of the Indian women's cricket team in the 1970s, said, "Cricket will be number one sport here soon. There is a tremendous fascination with the sport, but till now people had no platform to show their potential.''

Nineteen-year-old Tarun Pothugunta, who immigrated with his family from Hyderabad to Canada in 2007, said the winter league couldn't have come at better time for him.

"I played little cricket in India . But winter months have enabled me become part of this cricketing event. Lots of south Asian youngsters like me are now taking cricket seriously,'' said the Hyderabad-born player.

Since its official recognition in 2008, cricket has made big progress in Canada.

The country, which is an associate member of the ICC, staged its first T20 national league in May 2008 and the Scotiabank-sponsored triangular series featuring the West Indies, Bermuda and the hosts in August.

Later, it staged the world's first Twenty20 Canada Cup quadrangular series featuring Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and the hosts.