NEW DELHI: Like many juniors who took to cricket and competed in the age-group circuit, Sanjay Krushnamurthi harboured dreams of playing for India. Passion for the sport saw him join an academy in Bengaluru, play zonal cricket and for the state’s U-16 side but after India’s 2011 World Cup win, he moved with his family from Arizona to Karnataka. The ambition of playing cricket professionally now came with a pragmatic approach. He acknowledged that tough competition and a conveyor belt of talent coming through didn’t make things easy. The timelines to life were impacted by COVID-19 and the fact that he’s an OCI (Overseas Citizenship of India) card holder, which prevents him from playing for the country.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!“Yeah, from the moment I started playing cricket in India, the goal was to play for India. But I think I was also realistic. That it could happen. But I can’t bank on anything happening. Because there are so many other players. And if it doesn’t happen, what is my life going to look like? And yet, to make it happen, you have to throw everything at it, you can’t go in half-heartedly,” said the 22-year-old who has represented the USA in 14 ODIs and nine T20Is. “But over here, I feel like I’m able to pursue a college degree and play high-level cricket. So I think I’m happy with where I am right now,” he added.In 2019, a call had him course correct. His American citizenship earned him a trial with the Major League Cricket (MLC), which was still in its early days. A camp in Mumbai was followed by another in Houston. What was supposed to have been a three-week stay was prolonged by the coronavirus pandemic.“Another thing is I’m an OCI cardholder. I’m not an Indian citizen. After I played for Karnataka, they made the rule that OCI cardholders can’t play for the state. So, in order to try to play for India, I’d have to completely give up my US citizenship, and it would be a very long process. So yeah, I think that door (is) shut,” he explained.
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Since then, he’s taken to life in the US with both hands. A computer science student at San Jose University, Krishnamurthi juggles full-time education with professional cricket. It doesn’t help that the sport isn’t popular at the collegiate level.“It’s weird being a high-level athlete at a University, but I don’t play for the University. So I don’t get the privileges of a high level athlete that a lot of the other athletes do. Like, our University has a Water Polo team that gets quite a bit of support. But then the other thing is every University has a swimming pool, not every University has a cricket field, so the infrastructure required to make cricket big is quite a bit. And that’s the real bottleneck right now, because there is interest,” he stated when reasoning about the challenges of playing a sport that is still in its prime stages.
Sanjay Krishnamurthi (Sportzpics for MLC)
“I think it’s a similar reason to why it took cricket so long to get to the Olympics. I think maybe first get it into high schools. And for high school cricket, they wouldn’t have to play at the best fields; they can play on the AstroTurf pitches on baseball grounds, that’s fine. But as long as they keep looking at the younger players, that’s when it’s really going to grow. “I think that right now, the model of professional cricket is where they’re putting all the resources into. And then a lot of the players are coming from outside of the US. So what we want is more players who are born and brought up in the US to be able to make it through the ranks and have support at each level. But it’s an interesting problem that requires a lot of thought and time and money, probably,” he said on the US cricket’s challenges.Krishnamurthi’s task of getting some leeway from his teachers is helped by the fact that he’s scored 345 runs for the country in the two limited overs formats and picked six wickets. Last year, he earned the big ticket in the MLC, having earlier played in the Minor League for East Bay Blazers, scoring 872 runs and taking 54 wickets from 42 matches.
Part of the San Francisco Unicorns for two seasons now, finding a spot in MLC 2024, he scored 169 runs from 9 matches at a strike rate of 136.29 and average of 24.14. His stint included one fifty with a top score of an unbeaten 79 runs.Sharing the dressing room with Australian stars like Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch, Marcus Stoinis and coached by Shane Watson, it has been a boost to the player born in Oregon.“Last season was my first time actually playing and it was an incredible experience, especially to be alongside players such as Cummins, who is the Australia captain and one of the best players in the world right now. It was an opportunity for me to test myself against these guys, and until that point, I didn’t know quite where I stood at the highest level. But after last season, it gave me a lot of confidence.”Last year’s runners-up the Unicorns will get their season underway against the reigning champions Washington Freedom at the Oakland Coliseum. Based in the Bay Area, Krishnamurthi is keen to have his friends and family come out to watch what is a “home” game.“I am so excited, having friends and family being able to come. A lot of club cricketers will also be there and it will be special. Even if Oakland Coliseum wasn’t my home ground, it would still be super exciting because it is the biggest stadium in the MLC. Also that the Bay Area has a big South Asian population this is our best chance at getting a decent sized crowd and building excitement around MLC,” concluded the young batter.
