Cricket in Detroit: 106 teams, 2,000 players, and fields to match
DETROIT. Cricket has taken root across Southeast Michigan, driven mostly by Bangladeshi and South Asian immigrants who kept the game going in parking lots before the city gave it dedicated ground. The Michigan Cricket Association now counts 106 teams and more than 2,000 active players, up from four teams when it started in 2001. Tayefur Rahman, an electrical engineer who moved to Hamtramck in 2010, runs the association.
Detroit opened its first cricket field at Lasky Recreation Center in 2017, after City Councilmember Scott Benson backed the push, and a second at Jayne Field in Banglatown in 2019. Matches are also played at Belle Isle. Warren recently allocated Shaw Park for the sport, and Troy opened Boulan Park, a $900,000 field, in May 2026.
Saiyed Ahmed, who came from Bangladesh in 2002, coaches the Michigan Youth Cricket Academy. Cricket had brief runs in Michigan in the late 1800s and again in the mid 1950s before this latest wave took hold.
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