In Troy, Michigan, there’s about to be a new sports field in town.
Five hundred feet in diameter, it will have a full scoreboard and covered dugouts. From that description, you’d be forgiven for thinking it must be for baseball, the historic national pastime of the United States. But Troy is about to be home to the first regulation-size cricket field in Michigan.
In 2018, the International Cricket Council, the governing body for the sport, estimated that there were more than a billion cricket fans worldwide, but the sport remains relatively obscure in the United States.
There are signs that may be changing. In 2024, the U.S. co-hosted the Men’s T20 World Cup, with 190,000 fans attending 16 games. Cricket will make its first appearance at the Olympics since 1900 at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
In Troy, interest in a cricket field far predates any recent hype around the sport. According to Kurt Bovensiep, public works director for the City of Troy Recreation Department, residents have been asking for a cricket field for around 25 years. But finding a suitable location and securing funding for a field both proved to be challenges.
Boulan Park, the location of the new field, was initially excluded as a candidate due to a historic oak tree on the proposed site, Bovensiep said. By 2023, however, the oak had been cut down due to poor health.
Also in 2023, State Representative Sharon MacDonell, whose district includes Troy, sought to include funding for the field in the 2024 state budget. To help justify the inclusion, MacDonell asked long-time advocates for the field to communicate their support to State House leadership.
“There were so many people who had been waiting so long, I think that weekend, everyone got involved,” MacDonell said.
By the next week, the field was formally in the budget.
Despite the lack of regulation-size cricket fields in the state, the Michigan Cricket Association has still seen growth over the past two decades. According to Tayefur Rahman, the chairman of the association, the league has grown from five teams in 2001 to 101 teams in 2025, most of which play in the metro Detroit area, where Troy is located.
The league’s players are primarily immigrants, Rahman said, naming India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Jamaica and Afghanistan as the main places from which players hail. These countries are all full members of the International Cricket Council, indicating that cricket is a well-developed competitive sport there (Jamaica competes as part of the pan-Caribbean West Indies team).
In Michigan, playing cricket facilitates community.
“Everybody has … [a] full-time job, but [on] the weekends, they try to get together, and this is how you know each other,” Rahman said.
The sport also bridges divides — geographical, cultural and political alike — between players.
“There are still a lot of tensions in those countries that people who love cricket are from, but when they’re playing cricket, they’re on the same team,” MacDonnell said.
Given the sport’s popularity among immigrant communities, Troy seems a natural place for Michigan’s first regulation-size cricket field. Nearly 30% of Troy’s population was born outside the United States, the second-highest percentage among all Michigan communities.
Not all were in favor of the field. MacDonell said that it was one of the most-criticized items in the 2024 budget, with critics stating the amount of funding was unjustifiable given the sport’s relatively niche appeal.
Historically, other, more mainstream sports have taken precedence.
“Other sports, like soccer, they have beautiful soccer field[s] here. Baseball, they have beautiful space for the stadium. But cricket — there is no facilities,” Rahman said.
Rahman said that the Midwest has lagged behind other regions of the U.S. when it comes to producing top-level cricket talent. Part of that is due to the weather — cricket can only be played outside when it’s warm, putting the Midwest at a disadvantage.
Another reason is a lack of infrastructure. Every cricket field has a pitch, a rectangle of ground typically covered in a much shorter layer of grass than the rest of the field. Before being hit by the batter, the ball usually bounces once on the pitch, so pitch conditions can greatly alter the ball’s behavior.
The fields currently used by Michigan cricket players are multi-sport, meaning players must install their own pitch, essentially a mat made of synthetic turf, each time they play. The new field will have a built-in pitch, eliminating that hurdle and providing more consistent conditions.
For Bovensiep and MacDonell, it doesn’t matter whether the field actually brings more attention to the sport or helps players become more successful. What’s important is that a long-standing community desire has been filled.
“It may not be as popular as baseball or football, but it is very important to a specific demographic in the city of Troy,” Bovensiep said.
MacDonell put it even more simply.
“I wanted people to feel at home,” she said.
