Cricket is not something you would associate with the USA. When I moved here more than a decade ago, had heard from my couple of cousins about the thriving cricket scene among desi 20-30 somethings working in Software companies all over the US. Wherever you had a sufficient number of young ones, there were cricket matches and stuff. Sure there were attempts made to bring in the Indian team to play some matches in Florida, but still watching a match in a stadium was not something I expected I would do in the US.
And then, here we were in Grand Prairie stadium outside Dallas, Texas watching/cheering for Super Kings. It was a bit surreal to suddenly hear about a league being planned and lots of uncertainties and then the first season gets underway with half of the teams owned by IPL franchisees who bring the same brand name, identity and some of those players. Then comes the news that there is going to be a team based out of your city and that team is owned by your fav team from the IPL. Then to compound your joy, it is announced that 70% of matches in season one of Major League Cricket ( MLC) is going to be played in your city. But then there is this small matter of 100+ degree heat and of course the stadium is far away and the whole thing is a lot of unknown.
Yet there was no hesitation when a friend reached out asking if I would be interested in attending a few matches during the first weekend of the league. We planned to watch a double header - a day game and night one. July typically is super super hot and this was no different, I felt it was going to be a tough experience sitting in an open stadium. So yeah it was an open stadium as this was a Baseball park converted into a cricket ground, so the stands don't have shade. If you need shade you go up to concourse above where you can stand and watch the action - consume some food and drinks or you can get pricey tickets in the stands above which are covered and have option of sitting inside with AC as well and even rubbing shoulders with or seeing up close the franchisee owners / core supporters.
On the match day there was a stroke of luck as it rained heavily in the morning, unseaonally heavy rains early in the morning. I was thinking about the usual cricket and rain jokes - here I'm going to watch my first cricket match in 11 years in the middle of summer and out of nowhere there is heavy downpour. My friend was not easily discouraged and he felt that things would work and we can probably still go at 3 pm as planned. The rain did stop around mid day and as I was driving to that place I saw that instead of 100F as is usual that time of the day - it was showing 85F which meant good conditions to watch the match if the outfield had dried. There was a huge huge line of cars waiting to get to the parking - so it turned out to be 30-40 wait to get to parking area from near the stadium. The match had already started and we rushed in. There was not much of line or rush to get inside - the usual check for guns ( it is texas) and after a quick scan of our mobile tickets we were in. The Stadium looked pretty nice - it was my first time ever inside a stadium of any kind in USA. My previous experience of stadiums were from Kerala ( football stadiums), Mumbai and Chennai - all much older stadiums and not been through any major renovation when I visited long back. So this looked pretty neat and well set-up in comparison though much smaller ( 7-8k capacity).
The crowd predictably was heavily desi and we had seats right at edge just behind the fence/concrete wall. The boundary rope was like 10 yards in front of that and it was square of the wicket with a fielder from Super kings not very far from where I was seated. We watched a couple of overs and were settling in when someone came to check our tickets to confirm folks were sitting on right seats. We were told we were in wrong section and had to go to the next one, so we walked a little further to the right. Now these seats were properly near deep square leg fielder, but someone else was already sitting there - two gentlemen wearing South African green jersey of 92 WC - took a while to explain and once they realized they apologized and moved away as they also got confused with numbering just like us. Right behind us were a couple wearing Sri Lankan colors and there were a few odd Pakistani, some Bangladeshis but 90% of the crowd seemed like Indian. Before the match when I read various stories/reports on cricinfo and a few other portals the stories were about white Americans discovering cricket ( there were some whites too) and folks from different places in USA visiting for cricket. I guess these stories make it more readable, but for sure bulk of the folks came from this area and were desis!
After watching till 20th over, got up to take a look around, I wanted to see if we could get near commentary box to see if we could spot Sunil Gavaskar and other commentators, but no luck. Security was present and was checking anyone who tried to go to the area near commentary box. Walked around for a while to see what else was around and got some flags handed out by Knight Riders team for the next match - I was late for the first match so missed getting Super Kings yellow flags which would have been cool. Restrooms were neat and clean and food & water while certainly priced above usual was still reasonable which made the whole experience good. There was a Lions mascot of Super kings posing for pics with kids and they had face painting and some games for kids going on in the side. The crowd had lot of young men as expected but lot of families were there as well with young kids who were looking to get autographs of the players. Now this was a different experience for me, I have been to matches in India in 2000s and in general we have some big mesh barrier separating the crowd from players and interactions are very hard from what I remember. It was very different here and it was like grounds in England or Australia maybe - the player is like 10 yards in front of you. Soon every over break kids would run over and stand pretty near my seat trying to grab the attention of the fielder at deep square leg to get autographs. After a while the players - initially it was US local team players fielding there - would come and sign. It did make it hard to see the action and got a bit annoying after a while but at the same time it was a fun experience as crowd kept trying to talk / encourage the fielder to make them notice you/smile and then come and sign some flags or paper or pose for selfie.
Some of the big name players I was hoping to see like Faf, Devon Conway flopped with bat and it did look like the match was going to be one sided until Dwayne Bravo decided to take charge with bat. My friend and I were talking about how Bravo bats arching his body and the next seconds he hit a six the way we were describing from our memories of his batting in t20I and IPL games. Bravo tonking several sixes and keeping TSK in hunt till last few balls made it a good match to watch though the home team lost in the end. The next match was between Mumbai Indians NY ( weird name) and LA Knight riders - so the famous West Indian stars were there - Pollard, Sunil Narine and Andre Russell. We also spotted Lasith Malinga as bowling coach conducting the warm up drills somewhat near where we sat. When Knight Riders started bowling in the next match, Dre Russ was pretty near where I was sitting and crowd really went wild trying to catch his attention. But he said clearly I'm not gonna pose for pics or autographs for now. After a few overs he went to bowl and after that he didn't come this side to field and others who came were quite ok with signing autographs leading to made scramble. Here we were spending a bit of money and half of Sunday to drive all the way to watch some action live and view was totally blocked by autograph seekers. With little kids, I found it somewhat ok as they were somewhat well behaved and after explaining to them that I cannot see they would duck a bit when a ball was being bowled and only at end of the over they would stand to try and engage their target. But after a while bigger names started fielding there and grown men pulling children along started crowding around in front of us it just got a bit too much. Sri Lankan lady right behind me lost her cool with these guys crowding and told them off properly and marched them back to their seats. Order was restored for another 5 mins or so then again repeat.
Once MI NY team started fielding, they put Tim David over there and he started talking to the crowd and was ok to sign autographs and then after a while Trent Boult after finishing his spell got moved there and it was proper pandemonium as Boulty seemed super nice and keen not to disappoint kids seeking autographs and selfies. It got so bad for us that we had to abandon our seats and move elsewhere. I had quick look around to see if I can spot any other jerseys and spotted a few England ( 2019 I think) t-shirts, some Aussies and a few WI jerseys as well and a small group of Afghans in their traditional gear with Afghan flag wrapped around them. There were some nice moments as well with an Indian, Pakistani supporter taking a pic together and then someone called out and got a SL and Bdesh guy to join them in the pic. This was also the first time I was seeing DRS in action, something would happen and fielders would celebrate and a review would happen and we all watch the screen and wait for the replay and umpire to make a decision. Without the commentary - though there was a screen over there showing replays - and viewing this from side of the wicket it was a different experience all together. Best part was sitting among a diverse crowd and seeing players super super close right in front. But at the same time, it was hot and tiring and there was a lot of effort in getting into the stadium and exiting as well plus some annoying fans. So it was a mixed bag but with lot of positives for a totally unexpected chance to watch somewhat good quality cricket right where you live without too much effort. Seeing top WI cricketers lot of SA players and assorted Aussies, Kiwis live in action was for sure worth it. Overall the league seemed to be set-up well for success for this market at least. Looking forward for year 2!
