From a distance, the parade of fielders that fan out over dirt and grass suggests that a friendly game of baseball is under way.

A closer look reveals otherwise.

In this game the ball is often red, the field oval and the players clad in tidy cotton whites.

And that's just for starters.

The game is cricket, baseball's older brother. And it's faithfully played from Lodi to Roseville every weekend from April through November.

As befits a game spread by the British to its colonies, most of those who play the sport in this country hail from India and Pakistan. A smaller number are from the Caribbean and Australia. Few were born in that other former British colony, the United States.

A common denominator among local cricketers is that they work for Intel or Hewlett- Packard in Folsom, said Mohammed Khader, 35, president of the Sacramento Cricket Association.

Khader, who calls Hyderabad, India, his hometown, designs microprocessors for Intel. He has been playing cricket since he was 5 years old. He is the soft- spoken team captain of the 8-year-old Sacramento Tigers team, one of three cricket teams in Sacramento.

When he's not designing microprocessors, Khader is often playing cricket or watching daylong cricket matches on TV. Khader said that this passion is common to many local cricketers, who whet their appetite for the game by watching it on pay-per-view cable or online at cricinfo.tv.

"In India, cricket is like a religion," Khader said. "It's like the fascination that young people have here with football."

He said that the top three sports in India are "cricket, cricket and cricket."

It is this passion that has kept the sport alive and thriving in the United States.

Cricket has long been part of the sporting landscape here. The first recorded American cricket match took place in New York in 1751. At the time, the game was a leisurely pursuit for the landed gentry. In the cities, a less formal variant of the game, called "rounders," was more popular, especially among Irish immigrants. Rounders would later evolve into baseball.

Since the end of the colonial era, widespread interest in cricket on this continent has been lukewarm at best.

But that is slowly changing.

Today there are almost twice as many cricket players as there were 20 years ago, according to Cricinfo International, which runs the world's leading cricket Web site and is owned by the ESPN network.

Cricinfo estimates that there are at least 600 official cricket clubs in the United States, with registered players numbering between 10,800 and 14,000, and growing.

The Sacramento Cricket Association, which was founded in 2002 with four teams, now boasts 14. And the creation of more teams is expected, Khader said.

"Two years back, when I would talk to people about cricket, people hardly knew anything about it," he said. "Today we actually have people who come and watch our matches."

U.S.-born players are beginning to fill team rosters. Some are drawn to cricket because of its similarities to baseball. One such player is Fair Oaks resident James Foote.

Foote, 44, played baseball as a teen and has coached baseball teams since. Nowadays, he's more apt to wield the flat and wide cricket bat than a trusty Louisville Slugger.

Foote was introduced to the game three years ago at Intel, where he works as a graphics engineer. Cricket is so popular among Intel employees that it's played among two divisions.

"Cricket is an interesting game," Foote said. "At first it seems a little complex, because it's like a one-inning baseball game where everyone gets to bat." (See graphic.)

Sacramento resident Ben Tunney was initially attracted to cricket because of how it differs from baseball.

Tunney, 24, a behavioral technician, played baseball from childhood through age 18. But a vexing bone spur dashed his hopes of playing professionally.

Tunney first heard of cricket while a student at Sacramento State, where the 35-member Student Cricket Association is based. He was intrigued by watching the game and was drawn to its team-building aspect.

Call Bee arts critic Edward Ortiz, (916) 321-1071.