Sanjay Govil wants to make cricket an “American sport”. Photo courtesy of Sanjay Govil.
DC’s newest professional sports team, the Washington Freedom, will make its major league cricket debut Friday with a game against Seattle in Texas.
MLC, the premier professional cricket league in the United States, has four other teams – Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco – and will play its 2023 season games at Dallas’ home stadium and a cricket ground in North Carolina. By 2025, however, the Freedom hope to play home games in the area at a dual-use baseball/cricket stadium built in partnership with George Mason University.
Cricket is estimated to be the second most popular sport in the world after football, but its appeal is concentrated in South Asia, the Caribbean, South Africa and Oceania. In the US, Freedom and MLC will initially count on fan interest from South Asian and West Indian immigrant communities that already have thriving amateur leagues – but future growth will come from building a broader support base.
To better understand how Freedom came about – and where American cricket is headed –Washingtonian spoke to team owner Sanjay Govil, a Rockville IT executive and lifelong cricket enthusiast:
Tell us something about your background. Did you grow up with cricket?
I was born in Canada where my father did his PhD and then we moved back to India.. I grew up watching cricket like any other Indian. If the total population of India is 1.4 billion I would say that 1.4 billion people play or watch cricket. So it’s like a religion there, it’s in everyone’s blood and it’s a national pastime.
I moved to Alabama my senior year of high school and attended Auburn University. I used to play in Auburn but obviously there was no way to watch games back then. So there was a gap for a couple of years where there was no cricket for me. Then I moved to upstate New York to work for IBM. I did my masters again in Syracuse and played for the Syracuse cricket team. At that time there was no real league, so we started our own league in upstate New York. Our captain was Raj Subramaniam, who is now CEO of FedEx – I just met him again at the Biden state dinner with Prime Minister Modi. I moved to Maryland in 1991 and have called it home ever since.
Is there a large amateur cricket community in this area?
We have so many leagues in each county: Loudoun County, Fairfax County, Montgomery County, Howard County, PG County and Baltimore County. We have fields everywhere. We have our Infinite Eagles team playing Maryland Cricket Premier League, and when it comes to winning championships, we’re the most successful. I’m very proud of that. I’m a US citizen and proud to be an American, but at the same time my love for cricket has always been there.
People like us have grown, our children have grown, and the number of children now playing cricket at various academies across the United States is staggering. We have parents who literally take their kids out at 7am and come back for cricket at 4pm. There’s so much money now in cricket, just like football, just like the NFL and whatnot, that they’re looking at this as a way for people to play in leagues around the world Indian Premier League To Major League Cricket in America, and the big bash in Australia. So this is going to be huge.
This makes cricket one of the most popular sports in the world and many Americans, particularly South Asians, are die-hard fans. But there are also many Americans who don’t know how it’s played. Thinking about how to build a stronger fan base in DC?
My goal is to make this an American sport. The target here isn’t just South Asians, they’re already at it, aren’t they? A big part of my efforts is to spread this sport among people who are not related to cricket. The good news is they’re already getting into cricket with ESPN scoring occasionally. The second thing, which is a very interesting fact, is this Cricket was played in the USA until the 19th century.
But the goal is definitely to evangelize sport in the US. We’re going to start creating a lot of social media content about how cricket is played just to raise awareness. We fully understand that this will be a multi-year cycle. The beauty of it is that it’s a three-hour game and you go there and just bang, bang, bang. It’s run after run and you go there and you drink beer and burgers and hot dogs and everything we love around here. So it’s a combination of partying and having fun with a game.
Major League Baseball has attempted to up the pace of its games. Is cricket a faster game?
I think it’s as fast-paced as the NFL and the NBA, and there’s no comparison between baseball and cricket in terms of pace. I mean it’s non-stop action. Only when the bowler comes to bowl is there no action, but even then there is action because the anticipation is so great. And every ball counts. So it’s a very intense and fast-paced game that you can really get into if you’re supporting your team.
Let freedom ring 🔔 🇺🇸 🏏
Join us in officially welcoming the Washington Freedoms to #MajorLeagueCricket 🥰 @WSHFreedom will give the nation’s capital its own professional cricket team for the first time.
It’s absolutely monumental 🏛️ ➡️ https://t.co/PSV7Pf4Z5h pic.twitter.com/HpAqbVVTUf
— Major League Cricket (@MLCricket) March 15, 2023
This first season will last less than a month and all games will be held in Texas and North Carolina, which already have stadiums. When will DC get its own cricket ground?
The goal is to get your stadiums up and running as quickly as possible. Our goal is 2025 and since every city has its own stadium, we will of course play matches in every stadium. The limiting factor is currently the lack of infrastructure. We are very lucky to have worked with us George Mason University to build a stadium that will be a combination baseball and cricket field, the first in the United States of America and it will be a great plan for all universities and colleges. And next to us – I can’t name the team – but there will be another professional team next to us. They’re building their stadium there, and the concept is to build a whole community in that area. This is built in the west campus [in Fairfax] because they have about 130 hectares of land. So it’s going to be a great thing for the community and a great thing for Washington. The [T20] World Championship next year the event will be hosted by a combination of the United States and the West Indies. It’s already announced. That’s another big boost for cricket. And then this Olympic Games 2028 considering adding cricket. When that happens there will be a full court press to improve cricket in America.
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