OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Australian cricket legend Adam Gilchrist had barely made it inside the Coliseum entrance when dozens of fans swarmed him, and he obliged every request for photos and autographs.
Major League Cricket’s week-long stop in the Bay Area last month had top officials in the sport thrilled with how the old Oakland Coliseum provides an ideal spot for the sport to thrive — even for major international competitions like World Cup and exhibition matches ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, when the sport makes its return for the first time in 100 years.
“I’ve been really pleased with the way it’s been received,” Gilchrist said. “Clearly, the South Asian community up to India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, that region, it’s a religion there. And given the diaspora here and the number of South Asians in the community, I figured that they would have a keen following. It’s great to see new faces to cricket.”
Attendance for the opening weekend totaled more than 25,000 as the third-year, six-team league kicked off its season with great support in the Bay Area. Then, cricket scored another major victory June 29 in Dallas when the Texas Super Kings against MI New York drew a sellout of more than 6,100 with a standing-room only crowd at Grand Prairie Stadium — the largest regular-season attendance at that venue. It was the second-highest total for the sport at that venue behind the 2023 Championship Final.
And new Major League Cricket CEO Johnny Grave is committed to keep growing cricket in the U.S. just a few months into his tenure, which has included a move from Antigua in the West Indies to Dallas. He dreams of the day when all ages and skill sets are involved.
Curtly Ambrose, who retired 25 years ago, coaches at the highest levels at home in Antigua. He is hopeful cricket will catch on as a popular sport in the U.S. — and is encouraged by the support in the San Francisco area.
“Very, very unique because where I come from there are always traditional cricket stadiums. This is different, baseball stadium, drop-in surfaces. That is something that doesn’t happen in cricket normally but the support is good and I have a feeling that this will get bigger and better.”
In a city that has lost its three major professional sports teams over the past five years, cricket’s Oakland stop certainly brought a festival-like atmosphere to the Coliseum — devoid of baseball for the first time since 1968 after the Athletics relocated to West Sacramento ahead of a planned move to Las Vegas.
The dual-sport Coliseum — where the Oakland Roots soccer team now plays — is already a planned site for training and exhibitions ahead of the Olympics for nations looking to practice and get acclimated on U.S. soil.
“It’s probably really the best cricket facility almost in the Americas because it’s so iconic, so historic and so well located in terms of the wider Bay Area where there are all these cricket fans,” said Grave, who had initially hoped to bring cricket to the venue several years ago but couldn’t make it work with the A’s.
Grave brings decades of cricket experience, including most recently as CEO of Cricket West Indies, to the professional Twenty20 U.S. cricket league.
Owners like Anurag Jain of the Super Kings share Grave’s vision for growing the game domestically, considering now to be an ideal time to promote it with the L.A. Olympics ahead.
“I never expected to see cricket at this level in the U.S., considering it’s not a U.S. sport,” Ambrose said. “Of course lots of cricket fans are living here in the U.S. and are very happy to see cricket in the U.S. as well so they don’t always have to travel down to the Caribbean to watch cricket. It’s my first time here watching MLC and I’m very impressed with the quality of cricket and I believe it’s going to get bigger and better and maybe more Americans will come in and embrace it.”
Matthew Tromp sure hopes that’s the case. He’s 20 with a long career ahead, currently playing for the Los Angeles Knight Riders. Tromp made his way into the Coliseum and instantly felt the building’s baseball history.
“It was really awesome, I had goosebumps on my arms, it was like this is an incredible thing, cricket here,” Tromp said. “Obviously, it’s a different field to what I’ve been playing on, it’s a little weird shaped. ... It’s incredible. We’re all loving it so far, we all think it’s an incredible stadium as you can see by the games so far, high scoring, which is always good in cricket.
“And there’s also something in it for the bowlers as well. It feels like it’s a fair game for both sides and everybody’s excited for the future.”
A future that Grave hopes will include opportunities for cricket players from the youth level, college, amateur and professional ranks.
Players like Anthra Sayeram, an 8-year-old cricket enthusiast headed into third grade this fall in San Jose. She was among dozens of fans who waited patiently to meet Gilchrist. The girl’s parents, father Sayeram Umasankar and mother Seema Venugopal, moved to the Bay Area from India in 2014 and are thrilled with structured training Anthra and other girls receive. The family traveled to Australia last December for the India-Australia test series.
“We are huge cricket fans,” Umasankar said. “We totally enjoyed Major League Cricket because staying so far away from India, we miss watching professional cricket live. I have played recreational cricket in leagues here and have built and led teams. The talent pool in USA is skyrocketing now to a different level over the last 10 years than it did before.”
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