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Cricket has always been a part of 16-year-old Saanvi Immadi’s life. She started playing the popular international sport for fun when she was 7, but as soon as she was about 10 years old, she knew she wanted to play competitively.
“I always knew I would be playing … a serious level of cricket,” Immadi told the Weekly.
So when the sophomore from Amador Valley High School finally earned her spot as one of the youngest players on the U.S. Women’s cricket under-19 team, she understood it was only the beginning of her journey.
“It was a really an emotional moment for all of us as a family,” her father Ramesh Immadi told the Weekly.
Saanvi grew up surrounded by the sport. Her brother is also a competitive player who had been introduced to the sport at a young age by their father.
Ramesh, who immigrated to the U.S. from India in 1997, said there are two things that connect South Asian folks: movies and cricket
“The sport unites the community,” he said.
Even just 10 years ago, Ramesh said there wasn’t a lot of recognition for the sport in the Tri-Valley. He said he would have to drive his son two hours to the South Bay just so they could find a cricket field where they could play because there were only about 12 kids who were playing the sport competitively in the entire Tri-Valley.
However as the demographics have been changing in the Tri-Valley, he wanted to do more to bring cricket to the area. That’s when he decided to quit his job five years ago and began his advocacy work for more cricket spaces in the area.
Ramesh, who founded Crickets for Cubs in 2015, started reaching out to the Dublin City Council, which gave them a space at Emerald Glen Park. After that he worked with the community to raise $50,000 in donations to build the first batting cage in the Tri-Valley.
Since then he has worked with the rest of the Tri-Valley cities to create seven cricket fields. “Now we have thousands of kids playing cricket in the Tri-Valley,” Ramesh said.
And because of that growth, he said more kids like his daughter have been able to put in the work in order to compete at such high levels and make the national men’s and women’s teams.
Ramesh said five girls from the Tri-Valley made the national team of 16 players who recently went to Dubai to compete at the senior nationals tournament. He also said four boys from the Tri-Valley played for the men’s national team. He said one Amador student and one Dublin High School student even went to this year’s World Cup in South Africa.
For Saanvi, she said that the chance to go to Dubai last month and compete in a series of international World Cup qualifying tournaments as a new U-19 U.S. cricket team member was the best experience for her before taking her career to the next level.
She said that growing up with a brother who played competitively and being surrounded by his teammates who were also strong players, she has always enjoyed playing with older cricketers because it gives her more to learn from as a relatively new player.
Even though she didn’t get the results she wanted in Dubai, she got to bowl against one of the best batters in the world and was able to get some valuable experience out of the trip.
“Since it was my first tour too, my debut tour, it was a really eye-opening experience on what I have to learn and how I should get better,” Saanvi said. “I didn’t go in with a lot of expectations for myself; it was more like a learning experience for me.”
Now her main focus is continuing to practice as much as she can over the next year before the U-19 World Cup tour that is coming up in January so that she can perform well and continue her pathway toward earning a spot in the 2028 Women’s Olympic cricket team, which she said is her ultimate goal.
And while she did say it can all get a bit overwhelming because she is still a sophomore in high school who also has a lot of high expectations of her, she knows she has people around her who can help her get through the stress.
“At a young age I’m in the international levels, so I would say it is overwhelming but I have a lot of people that are supporting me who I can talk to, to get me through it,” Saanvi said.
She also said getting recognized by the Pleasanton Unified School District Board of Trustees at the March 28 meeting meant a lot to her because it meant that her sport is now being recognized by the larger community.
“It felt good that the community was paying attention because cricket doesn’t get that much recognition,” Saanvi said. “I know that soccer and baseball and all these (other sports) get recognition from the school but cricket doesn’t so … I felt really good not just for me but for the whole sport that school districts were also paying attention to sports like this.”
