Portland gets its first cricket bar

(JULY 21, 20254) A new bar called Sticky Wicket will open in Portland on May 30. It is in the St. Johns neighborhood. This bar will be special because it focuses only on cricket, a sport like baseball that is very popular in South Asia and the United Kingdom.

Michael Rasko owns the bar. He says this is the first cricket bar in the Pacific Northwest. Cricket is the second most popular sport in the world after soccer. Rasko thinks it is surprising that Portland did not have a cricket bar before.

The Sticky Wicket will show cricket games all the time on one TV. There will be six more TVs that show cricket, rugby, and soccer games, depending on the schedule. Rasko wants the bar to be a place where fans of foreign sports can meet and watch their favorite matches.

Rasko learned about cricket from watching videos on YouTube. He asked his friends from Bangladesh and England where they watched cricket. They said there was no good place to watch games in Portland. Sometimes they asked bartenders to show cricket matches, but the bartenders could not find the channel.

The bar will serve British food like bangers and mash and shepherd’s pie. Sticky Wicket will open where Park Tap House used to be.

There are about 450 people who play cricket for fun in Portland. The sport is growing in the U.S. A new professional league started in 2023 with teams in many cities.

Rasko says, "Cricket has many fans, more than most people think. They want a place in the community to watch games."

Sticky Wicket will be open from 4 pm to 10 pm on Wednesday and Thursday, 4 pm to midnight on Friday, noon to midnight on Saturday, and noon to 10 pm on Sunday.