Sachin Mahajan stepped onto the Oklahoma State University campus for the first time in 2003. He had just moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma, from his hometown of Mumbai, India.
He knew nobody. He even saw nobody as he arrived on campus during the dead of summer. Mahajan said he was used to stepping onto the streets of Mumbai and seeing hundreds of people. So, when he stepped onto the streets of Stillwater and didn’t see a single soul, he wondered if he was too far out of his comfort zone and too far from the life he knew.
The fear settled in as he realized he was thousands of miles from home without a hint of his culture on the Cowboy campus.
But Mahajan discovered that Oklahoma State did have one hint of India on its campus — a cricket club. He joined and soon found friends who became his family. He felt like he found a home.
More than 20 years later, Mahajan has continued his passion for cricket in the states as the chairman of the Arizona Cricket Association. He was elected to the position in 2023, but has been playing in the league since he moved to Arizona in 2006. Mahajan said that the cricket community in Arizona is growing without an end in sight.
The ACA is a nonprofit organization that began in 1989. It is home to 75 teams, 30 clubs and approximately 650 “leather ball” cricket players. The ACA plays year-round, only taking breaks for holidays, Mahajan said. During the summer, the ACA hosts a tournament with the league’s 10 best teams.
Those teams play multiple games every weekend in the blistering Phoenix heat, not to win a trophy or a prize but to just spend time with the cricket community playing a sport they love.
Vitasda Shinde was at a Guadalupe Tigers cricket game in June to cheer on her husband, a batter for the team. Her husband was the second batter in the lineup. He stepped onto the pitch at 7 p.m. and was bowled out five minutes later.
Cricket, baseball’s more complicated cousin, has the equivalent of one inning. Each team bats and fields once a game. So, after Vitasda’s husband Muluk was out, he waited more than two hours to play again in the fielding portion of the match.
“I don’t even like cricket,” Vitasda said with a laugh. “But if my husband plays good, then I love watching.”
Vitasda said Muluk “waits all week” to play one or two matches over the weekend. Even though Muluk was out in the first five minutes of the game, his excitement and dedication were still palpable. Playing cricket under the unrelenting Phoenix sun reminds the Shindes of India. Muluk said the streets in India are full of young boys playing cricket with any spare time they have, especially in triple-digit weather.
“Cricket is worshipped as gods in India,” Muluk said.
Muluk initially moved to New Hampshire to pursue his master’s degree in 2018. He has been in Phoenix since January 2022. On the East Coast, he didn’t find a cricket community and expected the same in Arizona.
“It was such a huge change because there is cricket all around,” Muluk said.
He began playing cricket when he was about 4 years old. It’s something that has always been a part of his life, and in a way, epitomizes his connection to his home. Even in Arizona, Muluk finds cricket as a direct path back to India.
“If I ever feel homesick, I just go play cricket with my friends and it becomes easier,” Muluk said.
On June 6, a massive cricket feat was cemented in Muluk’s mind as a favorite memory. The United States beat Pakistan in what is being called one of the biggest upsets in sports history.
The U.S. toppled Pakistan, one of the cricket world’s most prestigious teams. Pakistan lost in a Super Over, the equivalent of extra innings in baseball, during a Twenty20 World Cup game. It was the U.S.'s second T20 tournament game ever. The U.S. continued to prove its cricket legitimacy on June 12, losing to number-one-ranked India by a single run and only seven wickets (110/8-111/3).
The International Cricket Council has put on the T20 World Cup since the early 2000s. It is the shortest form of the game, with each team batting for 20 overs — an over includes six balls from the same bowler on the fielding team — and the game can last nearly five hours.
The T20 World Cup has been held every two years since its inaugural game in 2007. The current tournament consists of 20 nations, with teams divided into four groups of five nations. The top two sides in each group qualify for the “Super Eights.” Then teams advance to the semi-finals, and then finals, where two nations compete for a trophy.
Pakistan was the runner-up in the 2007 and 2022 T20 World Cup. They won the tournament in 2009.
The U.S. was in the tournament for the first time this year and had only played one match prior to meeting up with the cricket giant. This year, the U.S. is cohosting the tournament with the West Indies.
“It's really a miracle they beat Pakistan,” Mahajan said. “It's like an amateur league versus a professional league. The cricketers that are coming from there, that's all they know."
For example, a standout U.S. player, Saurabh Netravalkar, is an engineer at Oracle by day. Being a national cricket star is only his side gig. The game, hosted in Grand Prairie, Texas, was not broadcast and only had about 7,000 people in attendance. However, the June 9 matchup between rivals India and Pakistan filled the 34,000-person Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in Long Island, New York, according to The Athletic.
Approximately 400 million people watched the June 9 game, as India and Pakistan are two of the most popular cricketing countries who have also been warring nations off the pitch. The 2024 Super Bowl between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs garnered only 125 million viewers, The Athletic said.
This recent success against Pakistan and near win against India, combined with an insane number of eyes on the sport, could move mountains for local cricket players.
“Something like that actually inspires someone like me who's playing it as a recreational sport,” Muluk said. “As someone who came here only for education, I can now also think about playing for this country.”
As a nonprofit organization, the ACA uniforms and equipment are funded through player fees. Across the 29 cricket game locations throughout Phoenix, only two have permanent cricket facilities, Mahajan said. More popularity, more funding and more interest could solidify the foothold cricket has in Arizona.
“Cricket is more like religion to us,” Gilbert Grayhawks captain Thomas Pinto said. “All of the friends I have are because of cricket.”
It is a connection to their culture. And its rising popularity locally and nationally is only the beginning.
