Frederick to become ‘permanent home’ for professional cricket team

Rohit Anand, general manager of Washington Freedom, a professional cricket franchise that calls Washington, Maryland and Virginia home, gets a visceral feeling when discussing the plans for a cricket-dedicated facility in Frederick.“My hair is raised on my arms just thinking about what that’s going to be like,” he quipped.Anand’s enthusiasm — and that of other cricket fans — is growing after team officials, Frederick leaders and state lawmakers convened Friday morning to break ground on the new Frederick Cricket Park. The goal is to open the 24-acre parcel at 8400 E. Patrick Street as soon as June to host home matches for the Freedom, a Major League Cricket franchise owned by Sanjay and Vidya Goval that captured the championship in 2024 and has appeared in back-to-back finals in 2025 and 2026.Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen attended Friday’s ceremony and praised the Govals’ decision to keep the team close to Washington.“I remember well back in 2024 on Capitol Hill, we celebrated the Washington Freedom’s victory that year as the winner of the league, and you’ve been in many playoffs since,” Van Hollen said in prepared remarks. “But the journey was not complete until you had a permanent home, and we’re so glad you’re making your permanent home here in Frederick, Maryland.”Of the six Major League Cricket franchises, only Texas Super Kings has its own cricket-specific venue, the Grand Prairie Stadium. Forced to enact a tour-based model, the league has mandated home fields for every team by 2029, which makes sense to Anand.“You really don’t build your fanbase properly, you don’t build your branding, you don’t sort of really get to that unless you have a home field,” he said. “Every team needs that for the fanbase to get excited, and without having a home field, you don’t have that.”Cricket is the second most-watched sport in the world — trailing only soccer’s global reach — with 2.5 billion fans and broadcasts in more than 90 countries, and the sport will return to the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Anand said there are 400 to 500 youth who play cricket for six academies around Frederick, but tapping into the American market can be elusive.“For cricket to thrive, the goal is for folks who love baseball or football to get exposure to it and see how exciting it is,” he said. “And so we have some work to do. The league has some work to do, and part of that work is getting those home field stadiums so that more and more fans can in fact come to the games.”According to preliminary numbers provided by Real Estate Consulting to Washington Freedom, the 10,000-seat Frederick Cricket Park will cost at least $45 million to build. Goval is financing the entire plan without seeking contributions from Frederick, the state or federal government, Anand said.“My favorite line has been that we are the only sports franchise in the history of sports franchises that is not asking for a handout from a local jurisdiction,” he said.The same projections estimate that the park will generate more than $13 million in annual venue-related economic activity such as concessions and parking and more than $1.7 million in combined annual public tax revenue, create 53 full-time jobs, and produce about 4,000 hotel nights annually.Besides cricket, the site can be used for sports such as soccer, lacrosse and flag football. There will also be access to nature areas, walking trails and a new boat launch for canoes and small boats on the Monocacy River.Van Hollen said the venue will further increase Frederick’s visibility as a destination spot.“You’re going to have people coming from throughout this region and, over time, people from all over the country to come to cricket matches here, and when they do, they will enjoy everything that Frederick has to offer,” he said. “They will enjoy the restaurants, the shopping, and the historical sites, and that will be a big boost over time.”Related Articles Baltimore Sun high school sports Top 15 poll (Oct. 19) Maryland men’s basketball faces daunting schedule with 7 preseason Top 25 opponents River Hill’s Yim and Centennial’s Joo win Howard County golf championships Ravens’ Jesse Minter doesn’t rule out Tyler Loop competition: ‘Critical misses’ READER POLL: Does hiring Jared Banner as GM change your outlook on the Orioles? Since finding the property two years ago, Freedom officials have been eager to redevelop it, and that vision is now tantalizingly close.“I can’t tell you how thrilled we are right now to be in Frederick,” Anand said. “Sanjay is happy. It’s in his home state of Maryland. Just to see a sport that people are so passionate about in certain parts of the world like South Asia, where cricket is a religion and to see world-class cricket because the players we have come from Australia, UK, New Zealand or South Africa and they are world-class players that you watch on TV and to have them play on our own home ground here in the Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area is just going to be so thrilling for all of us.”The park’s availability might be enough to convince Van Hollen, who said he spent parts of his childhood in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka where he learned the sport, to make a return — although he conceded his bowling and batting are rusty.“Everybody gets excited about cricket, and it does bring people together,” he said. “I think that you can help excite people here about cricket beyond the current fanbase, and that’s what this is about — the power of sport to bring people together and to do it right here in Frederick and to do it with the Washington Freedom.”Have a news tip? Contact Edward Lee at eklee@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/EdwardLeeSun.