OAKLAND, CA (July 28, 2025) — With terms like wicket, batsman, bowling, boundary, a century, cow corner, finger spin and a yorker, even the most avid sports fans’ eyes might begin to gloss over. But once you experience the sounds and sights that are the pageantry accompanying cricket, you begin to embrace its appeal and cultural underpinnings.

A week’s worth of matches in June brought a new vibe to the cavernous Oakland Coliseum, which has been quiet since the Oakland Athletics turned out the lights in the fall of 2024.

During its nearly 60 years of operation, the venue played host to baseball, football and soccer, as well as sold-out rock concerts with the likes of the Who, the Rolling Stones, Led Zepplin and the Grateful Dead in its heyday.

Now, cricket has found an appreciative crowd, with more than 25,000 fans at matches June 14 and 15 during the opening week of the 2025 Major League Cricket (MLC) season.

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A meeting of old and new

The arrival of cricket at the Coliseum was the doing of MLC and Texas Super Kings team co-owner Anurag Jain, who has roots with business endeavors in the Tri-Valley more than two decades.

He grew up playing cricket in India but ultimately went into engineering. This venture was six years in the making and now in its third season.

“Build the league from the ground up and build the right product that the fans will come and enjoy. That means we had to have the best players and best coaches and the best infrastructure,” said Jain.

It’s a full circle moment for the entrepreneur.

“For us to come back to our roots is the Bay Area, to come back to our first funders that came from the Tri-Valley are, to come back to a business plan just like we put together (is) where the impossible meets the possible,” he said.

“And to come back to the historic Coliseum with so much history and character – for us it’s an old and new coming back in a beautiful way,” Jain added.

Bold and bright

With flashing lights keeping time with the DJ’s Bollywood beats and disco rhythms emanating from the old right field corner, the festive atmosphere in the lower grandstands helped fuel the action on the circular pitch. Hard-core cricket fans outnumbered the curious casual spectators, but all quickly embraced the party energy.

With teams bearing nicknames like San Francisco Unicorns, Washington Freedom, Seattle Orcas and Texas Super Kings, players don flashy and colorful uniforms of purple, fluorescent greens, bright orange and yellows. Some even have glittery trim on the pants and shiny numbers on the backs of the players’ jumpers (shirts) that harken back to the Swingin’ A’s of the 1970s – when their green tops and gold socks dared to shake up Major League Baseball traditions.

Upon entering the Coliseum from the D Gate, representatives of the teams thrust their flags and whistles into welcoming hands from tables piled high with freebies. Even the Los Angeles Knight Riders mascot was bouncing around and making his presence known by graciously taking photos with fans, young and old alike, as they made their way to the concourse to find their seats.

And the crowd goes wild

The game of cricket itself is largely a quiet endeavor, as bowlers try to outwit the waiting batsman – who in turn tries to twist or turn his body in such a fashion as to make contact with the oncoming ball.

But should the ball find its way into the field of play, the crowd’s anticipation grows. If the ball’s airborne, will the fielder catch it? If not, will the batting partnership try to scamper to their opposite ends of the cricket pitch before a fielder tries to throw the ball in a bid to knock off the balls that rest atop one of the wickets?

Seeing the ball roll to the boundaries of the playing surface, sometimes just beyond the outstretched hand of a diving fielder, for four runs certainly garnered the fans’ appreciation.

But when a batsman launched one on the fly to the lower grandstands or over the former outfield fences for six, the coliseum erupted – with loyal followers demonstrating their approval with outright flag waving, cheering and even dancing in the aisles to the sights and sounds of fireworks being launched skyward.

Defensive plays to record wickets (outs in baseball vernacular) received an equally joyous and raucous response from the Coliseum throngs, complete with flames shooting up above the outfield fences.

And just when you thought there would be a moment of silence, the DJ began spinning pulsating pop hits to again whip up the crowd – with music filtering through the Coliseum’s vast space.

The scoreboard was a reminder that this was not an American game. Rather than hawking beer, Royal was among the sponsors with its trademark Indian spices.

Cricket is hardly just a game of bowling, batting, wickets, being caught out and near dismissals, economy and strike rates, flipper, googly and doosra, appeals, powerplays and sledging, it’s the passion of the players matched and even exceeded by the fans who emotionally live and die with every delivery.