One of the world’s most popular sports will be coming to Oakland this summer, finally creating home matches for the Bay Area’s team.
Major League Cricket (MLC), the only professional cricket league in the United States, announced that the Oakland Coliseum will be the home site for nine matches between June 12 and 18.
“I think the ability for people to come out and realize that they love cricket and that the best players in the world are going to be playing in the Bay Area is going to be very cool for the fans base,” San Francisco Unicorns CEO David White told the Bay Area News Group on Tuesday. “It’s going to be a festivity of cricket over a couple of weeks and we look forward to bringing that to the Bay Area.”
The Unicorns were founded two years ago but have not played a game in the Bay Area, as the six teams in the MLC typically play in one venue, most often at AirHogs Stadium in Grand Prairie, Texas.
The league is looking to expand its reach by putting matches in different cities.
Oakland is just one of the cities to hold MLC matches this year. The Unicorns will open the season June 12 against the Washington Freedom in a rematch of last year’s title game, then play two more games at the Coliseum June 14 and 15, while the six remaining games in Oakland will feature other teams.
Once the home to the Oakland Raiders and A’s, the Coliseum currently is the home field for the minor-league soccer team Oakland Roots. White said while working with MLC, the league and the team looked at other venues in San Francisco, San Jose, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara but always had their sights set on the Coliseum.
Operationally, MLC CEO Johnny Grave said the Coliseum’s current configuration as a soccer field makes the transition easier when it will be time to fix the stadium to international cricket standards.
“The conversion between soccer to cricket will be straightforward,” Grave said. “Operationally, it’s a big deal for us and the stadium and for the Roots because not only do we have to convert it into a cricket field, but we’ve got to convert it back into a soccer field. It’s a million-dollar project for us to move the wickets in and but we think it’s a really sensible investment.”
Though the first international cricket match was played in New York in 1844, the U.S. does not have a rich history in the sport until recently.
Last summer, the U.S. national team upset international powerhouse Pakistan at the T20 World Cup and qualified for the same tournament in 2026. Bay Area native Saurabh Netravalkar, who plays for Washington in MLC, was a standout bowler for Team USA in its win over Pakistan. MLC also plays the T20 format, an abbreviated version of the game that, under other formats, can see matches go on for several days.
Grave and White both hope the summer’s matches in Oakland will help grow the game before cricket makes its debut in the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028.
“We’re hugely excited by the opportunity to play top-level international cricket for the first time on the West Coast,” Grave said. “We’re excited for what that means to Major League Cricket and the tournament, but in the buildup to the LA games. … We looked at what soccer has done over the last couple of decades and hopefully crickets on a similar journey.”