HKS/Major League Cricket
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Plans to turn the old AirHogs baseball stadium in a Major League Cricket stadium are about to kick off, or whatever the terminological equivalent of “kicking off” in cricket may be.
Major League Cricket (MLC) announced that the official groundbreaking will be sometime in April, marking the start of construction on the arena conversion to a professional cricket oval.
The groundbreaking in Grand Prairie will also coincide with plans to start a second cricket oval in Morrisville, North Carolina, around the middle of the year and enhancements to two additional venues in Houston. The Grand Prairie and North Carolina venues will host the sport’s World Cup, with completions scheduled by spring of 2023. The Grand Prairie facility will hold crowds of 15,000-20,000 people following its grand opening, according to a statement from MLC. It will be “MLC’s first premiere venue” for the sport of cricket in the U.S. and will create an “unprecedented infrastructure will transform the landscape for professional cricket and enable the U.S. to host global events over the next decade and beyond,” according to the statement.
“This array of venue developments in areas with significant cricket-passionate communities comes as the International Cricket Council (ICC) has identified the U.S. as its primary target market to expand the game with the award of co-hosting rights to the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in 2024,” says MLC co-founder Sameet Mehta. “MLC is committed to supporting that vision alongside its long-term partner USA Cricket and we’re excited to work together to transform the landscape and opportunities for cricket to rapidly develop across the country with this infrastructure investment.”
MLC officials presented their tentative plans to turn the 15-year-old baseball diamond into a cricket oval last month before the Grand Prairie City Council. The facility originally hosted the AirHogs baseball team from 2008-2020 in the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball. The AirHogs’ final season was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic and the team left the AAIPB later in the year.
Cricket might not sound like a sport fit for an area filled with die-hard Dallas Cowboys football and Mavericks basketball fans, but MLC vice president of marketing Tom Dunmore said in February that there is an active community of cricket fans and players in North Texas. The rise in local popularity is due to groups like the Dallas Cricket League and the North Texas Cricket Association promoting the sport, and to an influx of South Asian residents who’ve moved to North Texas over the last few years.
“There’s a demographic that’s incredibly passionate about cricket,” Dunmore says. “It’s not just that cricket is a sport that popular. It’s as big in India as football is in America. They’re obsessed with and love the sport. They watch it here in the middle of the night and play in leagues on the weekend. Dallas is certainly in the top five for that population and for cricket fans in the U.S.”
