The San Ramon Grizzlies (formerly the Golden State Grizzlies) are an American professional Twenty20 cricket team based in San Ramon that competes in Minor League Cricket (MiLC). It was formed in 2020 as part of 24 original teams to compete in Minor League Cricket.
On Aug 26th 2025, Grizzlies welcomed Turing AI, a Silicon Valley-based technology Unicorn as their title sponsor for the 2025 Minor League Cricket season
The team's home ground is Arroyo Park, located in Davis. The team is led by Rahul Jariwala and coached by Jagadeesh Arunkumar. The team changed their name from the Golden State to the San Ramon Grizzlies in June 2025, ahead of that year's tournament.
Franchise history Background Talks of an American Twenty20 league started in November 2018 just before USA Cricket became the new governing body of cricket in the United States. In May 2021, USA Cricket announced they had accepted a bid by American Cricket Enterprises (ACE) for a US$1 billion investment covering the league and other investments benefitting the U.S. national teams.
In an Annual General Meeting on February 21, 2020, it was announced that USA Cricket was planning to launch Major League Cricket in 2021 and Minor League Cricket that summer, but it was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and due to the lack of high-quality cricket stadiums in the USA. Major League Cricket was pushed to a summer-2023 launch and Minor League Cricket was pushed back to July 31, 2021.
USA Cricket CEO Iain Higgins also pointed out cities such as New York City, Houston and Los Angeles with a large cricket fanbase, and targeted them among others as launch cities for Minor League Cricket.
2020 In July 2020, the player registration for the Minor League Cricket exhibition league began. On August 15, 2020, USA Cricket announced the teams participating in the exhibition league matches, also listing the owners for each team. The draft for the exhibition league began on August 22, 2020, with the Grizzlies releasing their squad on August 24. Saurabh Netravalkar was later named as captain.
2021-2024
After the conclusion of the exhibition league, USA Cricket announced that they were planning to launch the inaugural season of Minor League Cricket in spring 2021. Ahead of the official season, which was announced to kick off on July 31, the Grizzlies announced Sami Aslam as captain with Hammad Azam helming vice-captain duties.
Throughout the group stage, the Grizzlies lost to the Strikers twice, and won twice against the Blazers, the Blasters, the Lashings, the Surf Riders, and the Thunderbolts. The Grizzlies additionally won against the Chicago Blasters and the Americans once. The Grizzlies topped the group, thus qualifying for the play-offs. In the quarterfinals, the Grizzlies bested the Houston Hurricanes in a best-of-three-game series 2–0. The Grizzlies headed to the semi-finals to face eventual winners, the Silicon Valley Strikers. The Grizzlies lost by 33 runs against the Strikers as they placed 3rd in the tournament.
2025 In May, the Grizzlies were taken over by Samir Shah, who was then appointed the team's CEO. The team also hired former Karnataka batter J. Arunkumar as head coach, before striking a deal with the San Ramon Cricket Association (SRCA) and the city of San Ramon to move their operations into the region.
Current squad Players with international caps are listed in bold.
NameNationalityBirth dateBatting styleBowling styleYear signedNotes Batsmen Aditya Srinivas Right-handed Right-arm fast medium 2021 Hammad Azam Right-handed Right-arm medium 2021 Overseas Zia Shahzad Right-handed Right-arm leg break googly 2021 Overseas All-rounders Abbas Jafri Right-handed Right-arm off break 2021 Abheyender Singh Left-handed Slow left-arm orthodox 2021 Asad Khan Right-handed Right-arm off break 2021 Overseas Bhavesh Jain Left-handed Left-arm medium 2021 Overseas Karan Chandel Right-handed Right-arm medium fast 2021 Junaid Malik Left-handed Right-arm off break 2021 Overseas Mohit Nataraj Right-handed Right-arm off break 2021 Neeraj Goel Right-handed Right-arm fast medium 2021 Sami Aslam Left-handed Right-arm medium 2021 Overseas captain Samson Bhatti Right-handed Right-arm fast medium 2021 Sheryar Khan Right-handed Left-arm medium 2021 Overseas Shivam Mishra Right-handed Right-arm medium fast 2021 Overseas Vatsal Vaghela Left-handed Slow left-arm orthodox 2021 Wicket-keepers Saideep Ganesh Right-handed Right-arm off break 2021
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References