Cricket, the world’s second most-watched sport, is set to make its Olympic return in 2028, 126 years after its last appearance.

This significant comeback is being heralded by the commencement of construction for a new 10,000-plus capacity cricket stadium in Pomona, eastern Los Angeles County.

This premier venue, designed to host both men’s and women’s matches, is located within the Fairplex fairgrounds.

It will serve as the home of the Los Angeles Knight Riders, a Major League Cricket team owned by Mumbai-based Knight Riders Sports, a company co-led by Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan.

The groundbreaking ceremony included a ‘bhumi pujan’, a Hindu ritual traditionally performed to seek divine blessings and forgiveness before disturbing the earth for construction.

Cricket already holds significant cultural sway within US diaspora communities, particularly those from South Asia, where it is followed with fervent dedication.

For American fans, coaches, and players, a dedicated stadium in a major sports market like Southern California represents a monumental milestone.

Investors anticipate that the momentum generated by local Major League Cricket games will extend to the Olympics, introducing the sport to a broader American audience and fostering promising pathways for homegrown cricketing talent.

Olympics could make cricket mainstream in America

Venky Mysore, CEO of Knight Riders Sports, said establishing the Knight Riders Cricket Field is just the first step in getting the average American fan engaged. Mysore is convinced of the sport’s commercial potential.

“People who watch the Olympics are not necessarily cricket fans.,” Mysore said. “When cricket becomes an Olympic sport, that takes interest and awareness to the next level.”

Knight Riders Sports operates multiple teams worldwide — in India, the Caribbean and the United Arab Emirates.

But the Pomona venue is the only stadium they’ve built from scratch, Mysore said. Only three international-level cricket stadiums operate in the US — in Texas, Florida and North Carolina. The sport is also played in other multi-purpose venues like the Oakland Coliseum.

LA is one of a handful of dedicated US cricket venues

Peter Della Penna, who has been covering cricket in the US for the past two decades, says this is the first time an international cricket event in the US will have a dedicated venue.

In 2024, a high-capacity modular stadium was specifically built for the T20 World Cup in New York, but was dismantled after the event.

But during the LA Olympics, it would not be ideal to hold the cricket matches in another part of the country, he said.

“Cricket players would want to be in the Olympic Village, walk shoulder to shoulder with US track and field athletes, swimmers and basketball players,” he said. “Cricketers in America have not had such prominence and US cricket really needs that.”

Cricket has had a long, rich history in the US. The first international cricket match was played between the US and Canada in 1844 at St. George’s Cricket Club in Manhattan, New York. Canada beat the US by a slim margin before thousands of spectators, with large wagers placed on the event.

Debjit Lahiri, a Wisconsin-based cricket historian, said Olympic cricket was last played in 1900 in Paris where the Summer Games were a chaotic sideshow to the World’s Fair, featuring events like live pigeon shooting. Cricket never made it to the 1904 Olympic Games held in St. Louis.

Cricket in Los Angeles began around 1900 with local clubs. It gained prominence in the 1930s with the Hollywood Cricket Club formed by expat British actors, drawing big names like Errol Flynn, Laurence Olivier, Cary Grant and Boris Karloff.

The club’s original home at Griffith Park was torn down to build an equestrian center for the 1984 Olympics.

It moved to Woodley Park in the San Fernando Valley, where several aspiring cricketers learned to play the game, including Ayan Desai, a 22-year-old rising star who hopes to play for Team USA in 2028.

Desai, whose family owns a motel near the future Knight Riders stadium, said he was thrilled to hear about a world-class cricket venue almost in his backyard.

“To play the Olympics is special, but to do it in front of your home crowd, in your home city, that would be amazing,” he said.

Desai, a left-arm fast bowler, plays for the Seattle Orcas major league team and has competed in four international games as part of the US national team.

“This is what we’ve needed to grow cricket in Los Angeles,” he said.

Questions remain about cricket’s sustainability

Antigua native Reggie Benjamin, a former US cricketer and longtime coach based in Los Angeles, remains skeptical.

“I’m happy to see cricket get an opportunity to showcase itself here,” he said. “But if you can’t get average Americans to come to a game and sit in the stands for three hours, or if you can’t get American kids to play cricket, the game is not going to grow.”

Benjamin said he’s been disappointed to see homegrown talent and grassroots efforts cast aside as players from other countries are brought in to play for major league teams and the national team.

He also points to poor management that has beset US cricket and raised concerns about cricket’s inclusion in the 2028 Olympics.

Last year, those challenges came to a head as USA Cricket, a nonprofit tasked with developing the sport in the United States, filed for federal bankruptcy protection after ending a contract with American Cricket Enterprises, the group that created Major League Cricket.

Since then, the International Cricket Council, which oversees cricket worldwide, has been temporarily running the US national cricket team. ACE also filed a lawsuit alleging wrongful termination of the contract.

Yet big investors like Mysore are optimistic that a cooperative relationship is possible between USA Cricket and Major League Cricket. Both feed off each other, he said. National selectors often look to major league teams for star players.

“A strong national team is important because it keeps interest alive in the sport,” he said.

Walter Marquez, CEO of the Fairplex, says he believes in cricket’s future. A diehard baseball fan, Marquez said he’s been boning up on cricket recently. He now knows what a “yorker” means, and he sees real potential for the game to grow.

“For those who don’t know cricket, given an opportunity, they will learn what an exciting game it is, especially the T20 format,” said Marquez, referring to the truncated format the Olympics will use in 2028.

“We like home runs. We love the long ball. Cricket has a lot of those. American sports fans just don’t know they’re cricket fans yet.”