It's been a long and winding road for Sanjay Krishnamurthi and his family - from Oregon to Arizona to Karnataka and now northern California - but seeing him take the field for San Francisco Unicorns on Thursday night at Oakland Coliseum made it all worth it. 

Photo credit: Peter Della Penna

By Peter Della Penna (Twitter/X @PeterDellaPenna)
 
When Satya and Julie Krishnamurthi decided to move their family from Karnataka back to their American roots in the Covid summer of 2020, the vision of a professional cricket career in America may have seemed more like a mirage to the majority of people engaged in the cricket community. Still only 16 at the time, Sanjay had split his existence between the USA and India. 
 
Born in Oregon, most of the first half of his life had been spent in Arizona where Julie’s side of the family is from. But not long after Sanjay caught the cricket bug from his dad while watching India win the 2011 ICC World Cup, the family decided to move to Karnataka to be closer to Satya’s family and also give Sanjay and his two brothers, Vijay and Pranay, a chance to strengthen their bond with their Indian roots. Before long, Sanjay was quickly embedded in the Karnataka pathway after being identified through a bowling competition orchestrated by Indian legend Anil Kumble. 
 
“When he was eight years old, Sanjay was the youngest player selected out of 3,000 kids in Karnataka as a talented spinner,” Satya said outside the gates of Oakland Coliseum on Thursday night, about an hour before 22-year-old Sanjay was going to take the field for San Francisco Unicorns against the defending champion Washington Freedom for the first cricket match played at what previously was best known as an iconic baseball and football venue. “So when that happened, as parents when you see that your child is recognized in such a way, then you feel a sense of responsibility to nurture that talent and so that’s how it started.” 
 
In November 2018, Krishnamurthi was picked as a 15-year-old for the Karnataka U16 state side, eventually playing four matches as an opening batsman and left-arm spinner in the three-day Vijay Merchant Trophy competition. But in the spring of 2019, USA Cricket announced a partnership with American Cricket Enterprises to form a franchise T20 league. In spite of all the disruptions globally due to Covid, ACE forged ahead with starting its Minor League Cricket tournament, meant to serve as a feeder to Major League Cricket. At a crossroads, Sanjay and his dad were the first ones to travel back to the USA and resettle in northern California, taking a gamble on getting in on the ground floor of professional cricket in America. 
 
“It’s one of those things where you dream and you hope for things but you can’t really plan for how things will unfold,” Satya said. “It was Sanjay’s dream right from age eight or nine when he started playing that he would play at the highest level.”
 
Krishnamurthi was named MVP of the exhibition season of Minor League Cricket in 2020 when he starred for the East Bay Blazers by scoring 264 runs in eight matches at an average of 88.00. The award came with a prize of $5,000. That might sound like peanuts. What’s even more remarkable is that the Unicorns locked him in for the bargain U23 category price tag of just $2,500 in the inaugural 2023 MLC Draft and subsequently retained him at that level for the next two seasons. It’s safe to say that the Unicorns are getting their money’s worth. After scoring 169 runs last season, including a Player of the Match performance with 79 not out off 42 balls in a regular season win over Washington Freedom, Krishnamurthi came into Thursday night full of confidence on the back of solid performances with the USA squad in their recent home ODI tri-series against Canada and Oman in Florida. 
 
But through all of these performances during Krishnamurthi’s rise, he rarely got to play in front of family and friends. That MVP run as a teenager in the summer of 2020 for East Bay Blazers was played in empty parks due to Covid restrictions. Meanwhile, Unicorns were nomads in the first two years of MLC, playing all of their games in Texas and North Carolina. So Thursday night was one of the first opportunities that Krishnamurthi has had to play in a genuine professional stadium environment in his adopted hometown. It was too special for his family not to be able to cherish. 
 
“We as a family really believe that God orchestrates all these things, that we couldn’t have planned for or controlled for,” Julie said. “I remember right before we moved from Chandler to India, I was walking around a little baseball ground and I felt really sad thinking, “I’ll never get to see my kids play here,” particularly Sanjay because he was at that age. So many times I’ve thought about that. A friend had said, ‘Whatever you’re giving up moving to India, it will all be worth it. You’ll get it back ten-fold.’ So I’ve thought of that many times, like, ‘oh wow, I didn’t get to see him play baseball but now I’m getting to see him play cricket.’ So it’s pretty amazing.”
 
All of those sentiments came before he walked to the crease in the sixth over at No. 4 for the Unicorns. While the majority of fans present will remember the night for New Zealand star Finn Allen’s record-breaking 151 off 51 balls for the Unicorns, there was also no shortage of roars bellowed out for Krishnamurthi. His moment in the setting Oakland sun came in the eighth over of play. Taking on Rachin Ravindra’s offspin, Krishnamurthi accessed clever angles to carve out four consecutive sixes in different areas of the leg side between long-on and square leg. Each one was met with more delirium than the previous one, including from his brothers in the crowd. 
 
“This is actually my first game like this, seeing my brother,” Vijay said. “So it’s a pretty big deal for me. I haven’t seen Sanjay play in a forum like this ever. I usually see him on a basic field, Sea Breeze [Park] or some basic field but not some epic field like this. What goes through my mind is that I’m happy he enjoys his sport. Him hitting those sixes, it does make me feel happy and it sends a thrill through me. But he enjoys his sport and that’s all that matters to me.”
 
He wound up getting out in the 12^th over for 36 off 20 balls, caught on the boundary at long-off by Glenn Maxwell off the bowling of USA international Ian Holland. As he was talking back to the Unicorns bench, the hometown fans rose to their feet to give Krishnamurthi a got a very generous ovation. Annoyed at getting out, and humble enough to not go overboard making a show of getting out while Allen was marching toward a century, Krishnamurthi walked off the field without much emotion in the moment other than disappointment that he couldn’t carry on further. But the fact that Krishnamurthi was standing shoulder to shoulder both with and against major international stars struck a chord with his younger brother Pranay. 
 
“It’s been really cool because I’ve seen a lot of these guys like Corey [Anderson] and [Glenn] Maxwell, I’ve been watching them for years,” Pranay said. “So seeing my brother going against them when we used to watch them on TV together back in India, it’s really just crazy to see how far he’s come. All the years of throwing him balls or helping him here or there, you really see how it reaps rewards in the long run. In the moment it felt tiring, but it’s crazy to see him on this stage against the best players in the world.”
 
While Sanjay did his best to keep a serious face on throughout his time in the middle, he finally broke character at the innings break. Three of his college friends at San Jose State University – Anthony Tokunaga, Isaiah Moh and Muyi Lin – were shouting out to him from their seats in Section 111. They were loud enough for Krishnamurthi to hear them and give a wave while cracking a smile just before the Unicorns formed a huddle for a final team pep talk ahead of taking the field for the chase. 
 
“I only knew the basics from what Sanjay told me. The things like fours and sixes. He’s a very low-key guy,” said Moh, who is currently one of Krishnamurthi’s roommates at San Jose State. “He gave us tickets and obviously we wanted to come out here. It’s the season opener.”
 
It may have been the first live cricket match for the three college friends, but it won’t be their last. Seeing Allen continue on to make his 151 was amazing, but it was hard to compete with the sixes hit by the humble kid they know from their college campus and definitely worth taking the trip out from San Jose riding the BART (Bay Area Rail Transit). 
 
“It was exhilarating man,” said Lin. “Seeing one of our friends in a big-time moment like this and just showing out like that, it was really cool for us.”
 
‘Cool’ was the same word used by Satya and Julie when they were asked at the innings break what it was like seeing the crowd go wild for their son after every six. The word summed up the night in more ways than one. Not only was it the buzz of seeing such a historic occasion at Oakland Coliseum, but it also accurately described the weather. Following two years of matches played in furnace like conditions at Grand Prairie and Morrisville, there couldn’t have been a more pleasant forecast than the low 60s temperatures just off the bay inside Oakland Coliseum. Plenty of hooded jumpers were in the crowd, but the consensus view was that fans would rather come to the ground wearing that than be on the verge of passing out in the sweltering heat experienced at other American cricket venues. Cool on-field entertainment plus cool weather conditions equals a cool experience that many fans hope to replicate over the remaining six days of MLC fixtures scheduled for the Coliseum, including a pair of doubleheaders featuring the Unicorns on Saturday and Sunday.  
 
Though the Krishnamurthi family certainly hoped there would be moments like this when they took the call to return stateside in 2020, there were no guarantees this day would come. No matter what happens in his career going forward, they’re grateful for whatever comes Sanjay’s way. 
 
“We’ve played different roles in Sanjay’s life,” Satya said. “I have been involved more in the cricketing aspects and right from the time that he started playing cricket, my desire for him was just that he would enjoy himself. It’s great the way it’s unfolding, but that was not a goal we set, that he would become this kind of cricketer. So there has been one consistent theme throughout his cricket, that he would enjoy playing and just have delight. So that’s my hope for him tonight, that it’s just another game. Well, it’s not just another game, but just that he would enjoy every moment of it.”