USC Athletics has 137 national championships under its belt as a university, with men’s track and field winning the most recent one.
But that number is a little misleading, as it excludes the entirety of club sports. The Trojan Cricket Club has the opportunity to take home a national championship this week, with absolutely no support from the Athletics department and little support from the university as a whole.
The Trojan Cricket Club is not considered a varsity sport at USC, but rather a club sport which falls under the Recreation Club Council. Still, that has not diminished the club’s chances at a championship.
USC’s collegiate cricket team received an invitation to the Collegiate Cricket League’s first-ever national championship tournament, a 12-team contest taking place in Austin, Texas between April 17-20.
Satyajit Roy, a graduate student studying computer science, is in his second year with the team and serves as a team captain.
“Based on our previous performances and based on the quality and the talent we have on the team right now, we are definitely going for the trophy,” Roy said. “We want to win the trophy, and I think we have a very good chance of doing that as well.”
The Trojans have already won a tournament this school year, taking home the trophy in the SoCal College Cricket Shield back in October. USC earned bragging rights over its crosstown rival UCLA, a team who will also be at the CCL National Championship, to earn the tournament win.
While club sports clearly cannot offer athletic scholarships, the Trojans have still been able to bring in top talent from around the world to have such a successful year.
Aryan Sharad Shetty is a graduate student studying computer science, but also a professional cricket player in the United States outside of his play with the USC club team. The graduate has also played at the international level — representing Hong Kong — to go along with high-level play in Mumbai, India and the United Kingdom.
Yet, even with all that experience, Shetty still has the drive to play for the Trojans.
“It’s always an honor to represent your college, especially for sport,” Shetty said. “I’m not only honored to represent USC, but I’m also excited to kind of help bring forth college cricket as a whole in America by being the first couple of batches to do so.”
Now, the Trojans have the chance to show their stuff on the national level, with Roy leading all players in the SoCal College Cricket Shield with his 144 runs and Shetty earning tournament MVP honors. The national tournament features other Southern California teams like UCLA and UC Irvine, along with cross-country squads like UT Dallas, Wisconsin and Georgetown.
This was not the first opportunity the Trojans had to compete in a national-level tournament, with the National College Cricket Association hosting its own national championship in late March, a tournament which UT Dallas won.
But USC could not make the trek down to Houston because of a lack of funding.
“We were disappointed that we couldn’t make it to the tournament in March,” Roy said. “We couldn’t get enough funding, and the tournament and the expenses in general were a little too expensive for our players to contribute on their own and go. That was the reason we couldn’t go.”
The club only received $2,000 from RCC this past year, making it nearly impossible for the team to pay for both travel and lodging for the NCCA tournament.
For future seasons, the club is looking to expand its fundraising efforts since the team has raised itself to national prominence, along with the sport’s growth in the United States.
“Cricket’s recognition is starting to slowly grow in America,” Shetty said. “There’s just a growing market for cricket in America, and they’re also just seeing the potential for it to grow more because of new people coming to watch it.”
But, even with the financial issues the Trojans faced with the NCCA national championship, the team was able to make the finances work for the CCL tournament, looking to upset the likes of UT Dallas.
“USC has a really really strong pool of cricket players,” Shetty said. “Compared to other teams, we should be top contenders.”
According to Roy’s understanding, the club has been around since the early 2000s, but this is the first time the Trojans have a chance at a cricket national championship.
“In the recent past, what I’ve heard is, we’ve never been able to participate in a tournament which has teams coming in other than the West Coast, so it seems like the first chance for us to participate,” Roy said.
The Trojans will travel 13 players down to Austin to try and take home the trophy. USC is currently guaranteed 5 matches in group play against Texas, Wisconsin, Florida, UC Irvine and UT Dallas across the first three days of the tournament.
If USC finishes in the top two among the six teams in its group, the Trojans will advance to the semifinals with a chance to advance to the finals that same day.
All of the games will be broadcast on the NCL Cricket app, and the club has an Instagram page @usccricket for more specific details about fundraising or results for the Trojans.
While it would not go down in the USC Athletics record books, the Trojan Cricket Club might just add to the rich sports history at USC.