Cosmos continue to crush competition

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This article was published 09/06/2025 (313 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In 2022, the Elite Division of the Manitoba Cricket Association was formed, and every year since, it has been dominated by one of Manitoba’s oldest cricket teams, the Cosmos.

The Cosmos, established in 1978, have built quite the legacy in Manitoba, with 24 championships under their belt. As the MCA has grown in Manitoba over the years, the Cosmos have grown alongside it, expanding to five teams, sending players to Canada’s national cricket team, and developing Manitoba’s youngest players in high schools.

However, the organization’s success has not always been linear.

When Ray Ramrattan took over as president in 2003, the team was in a much different place than it is today.

“At the time that I took over the club, we were on a downward spiral,” said Ramrattan. “We hadn’t won anything for five years. We were barely scraping (by) to have members.”

Ramrattan, originally from Guyana, came to Canada when he was 12 years old and started playing with the Cosmos in 1983.

“West Indies is one of the prominent areas that cricket is like a religion,” said Ramrattan. “Cricket was part of my life even as a kid there.”

When he became president, Ramrattan says his focus became rebuilding the club, which had only six members at the time, to establish a solid membership base and start winning championships again.

“From that point, I grew the club from the single team to 2008 where we had enough players to enter a second team in the league,” said Ramrattan. “By 2013, we had four teams in the league and by 2018, we had five teams in the league.”

The breakthrough year was 2013 for the Cosmos organization, according to Ramrattan, when they won both the Premier Division and Division One titles in the same year. Since then, they have claimed the top MCA division title every year through 2024, except during the COVID years of 2020 and 2021, when they were runners-up in a modified competition.

Winning the top MCA division titles qualifies teams for the Western John Ross Robertson Clubs Championship matches, which feature four representative clubs from Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The Cosmos captured the championship in 2019, 2022 and 2023.

Of the six divisions in the MCA, the Cosmos have two teams in the top Elite Division, the Cosmos and Cosmos Lancers, while the Cosmos Kingz compete in the Premier Division, the Cosmos Spartans in Division 2, and the Cosmos Academy in Division 3.

For two Cosmos members, Shivam Sharma and Jatinder (Sunny) Matharu, their success has gone far beyond Manitoba’s borders, with both players earning the honour of being selected for Canada’s men’s national cricket team.

Matharu came to Canada from India in 2008 as a teenager and started playing for Team Manitoba in 2011 before joining the Cosmos in 2015, eventually becoming the team’s captain in 2020.

“Until like 2017, 2018, I was playing, but I wasn’t really playing for the Canada team or anything like that,” said Matharu. “I was still working hard, but my goal wasn’t actually clear, I was just playing cricket.”

But as his game evolved, Matharu began to draw the attention of Team Canada selectors and coaches. Motivated by the recognition, he intensified his training both on the field and in the gym and made his national team debut in 2021 at the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Americas Region Qualifier in Antigua. Canada placed second, advancing to the 2022 World Cup Qualifiers in Oman, where Matharu continued to compete.

“It’s pretty challenging when you have that pressure when you know you’re representing your country,” said Matharu. “But it’s a proud moment, too.”

This February, Matharu competed in a one-day series with Team Canada against Zimbabwe, and later took part in the ICC World Cup League 2 tournament in Florida at the end of May, though the team fell short of advancing to this year’s World Cup qualifiers. Matharu also plays in the Global T20 Canada Cricket League, which competes every summer in Brampton, Ont.

“I want as many as our players as possible to play for Team Canada, because they don’t really look at Winnipeg players a lot,” said Matharu. “Mostly, it’s always B.C., Toronto or Alberta, but Winnipeg, they never really see anybody here.”

Sharma made his Team Canada debut this April at the North America Cup in the Cayman Islands, where the team finished second, just behind the United States.

“You kind of become a role model for some of the players that want to play for Canada,” said Matharu. “They look up to you, how you practice, how you discipline yourself, with your diet.”

Ramrattan says having national and provincial team players is a proud achievement for the Cosmos, but it also poses challenges when key players are away for competition.

“Having players making the national team, it’s a bittersweet thing,” said Ramrattan. “This is what they’re going for, this is what they’ve been training for, but it does weaken our team when we have to continue to play games in the league here, when two of our best players are out representing the country.”

But the Cosmos, led by head coach Raza Ali, continue to put in the work and remain one of the few clubs with consistent indoor off-season training starting in January every year.

Not to be overlooked amid the dominant success of their high-talent teams, the Cosmos have also focused on developing young cricket players in Winnipeg for nearly a decade.

In 2016, the Cosmos began outreach programs in schools to provide opportunities for kids interested in cricket, especially new immigrants. Two years later, in 2018, they formed the Cosmos Academy, the organization’s newest team, as a development squad for players aged 13 to 19.

“I put myself in the shoes of the kids that are coming to Canada now, because back when I came, cricket was not available as much, definitely not available in schools,” said Ramrattan. “It was available through the club, but I know that being associated or being able to take part in a sport that I was familiar with would have made settling into Canada a lot easier.”

Ramrattan currently coaches at Fort Richmond Collegiate, where 32 kids are involved in the program. He also helped start a cricket program at his former high school, Dakota Collegiate, which is now run by retired Cosmos player Keith James. Cosmos members have also helped coach cricket programs in elementary and middle schools over the years.

The Cosmos will continue to work towards their fourth consecutive MCA Elite Division Championship over the summer. Their next match goes Sunday, June 15th, against the Winnipeg Blues at Winkler Cricket Ground. Game time is 1:40 p.m.

zoe.pierce@freepress.mb.ca