Ravichandran Ashwin was introduced and walked out onto the field at Grand Prairie Cricket Stadium on a warm Texas evening, and the roar that greeted him could have belonged to Chennai or Kolkata. Kids chanted his name from the stands. Families scrambled for photos between overs. By the time the night was over — and his VTex India Squad had fallen to Chris Gayle’s AWS World Squad — the result was almost beside the point. Ashwin, India’s second-highest Test wicket-taker with 537 wickets across 106 matches, had come to Dallas to be part of something new, and the crowd made sure he knew they’d noticed.
The occasion was Battle of Bats, a first-of-its-kind cricket event created by VTex, the Brazilian-founded enterprise e-commerce giant that competes at the top of the global market. The event brought retired and semi-retired international stars together with amateur players at Grand Prairie’s ICC-standard venue for a single night of 4X Cricket — a format that builds on the T20 structure but divides the match into two innings in Test style. Ashwin captained the India side, which also featured Cheteshwar Pujara, Ambati Rayudu, and Stuart Binny among others.
VTex partners AWS, Capelli Sport, WPP and Willow by Cricbuzz also sponsored the event
For Ashwin, the appearance in Dallas sits within a broader post-retirement chapter he has described as being about giving back. He retired from international cricket in December 2024 during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Brisbane, and stepped away from the IPL in August 2025 after a final season with Chennai Super Kings. He has since signalled his intention to explore cricket opportunities beyond India — most notably signing with the Sydney Thunder for the most recent Big Bash League, which would have made him the first Indian to play in the BBL before a knee injury requiring surgery forced him to withdraw.
In Dallas, the appetite for more was unmistakable. Fans were openly chanting for Ashwin to come play in Major League Cricket, the US-based T20 competition that holds many of its fixtures at the very stadium where Battle of Bats took place.
Sitting down with cricexec before the match, Ashwin was generous with his time and expansive in his thinking about what cricket can become in the United States.
“Wonderful to be here in America,” he said. “I think it’s got a lot of potential in terms of what cricket can achieve in this country. Hopefully this is a starting point of something memorable and we can pass on some knowledge to the amateurs that are going to be playing around. This part of my journey is more about giving, and I’ve had a first chapter that’s been quite relentless. I look forward to enjoying this chapter.”
Ashwin was quick to credit what American cricket has already accomplished on the global stage. The USA’s shock victory over Pakistan at the 2024 T20 World Cup remains one of the most talked-about results in recent memory, and the national team pushed India hard in the same tournament.
“It’s quite impressive what America have done at the world events so far,” he said. “They knocked over Pakistan in the last World T20. They were very competitive against India as well — they almost put India in deep trouble. They gave a very good account of what they can potentially do.”
But Ashwin’s analysis went deeper than the scoreboard. He pointed to the growing South Asian population in the US as a structural tailwind, noting the enthusiasm visible even at the recent Under-19 World Cup when the American side competed. And he identified what he sees as the critical next step: embedding cricket in the American education system.
“Traditionally, if you look at the landscape of American sport, it’s very important that the sport picks up at the university level, at the college level,” he said. “You look at anything like baseball or basketball — that’s where it really takes off. And there is a real requirement for cricket to go down that route.”
He also flagged cricket’s inclusion at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics as a potential turning point. “I don’t think they leave Olympic medals up for grabs very easily,” he said of the United States. “That’s a very big positive for the sport. If it can latch onto the Olympic journey, we’re going to have another country that takes this sport to a different level.”
Asked what he would tell a young American player trying to build a serious cricket career, Ashwin returned to fundamentals — and drew a direct line from his own experience watching India’s infrastructure develop over the past two decades.
“The first thing that grows the sport is good quality infrastructure,” he said. “I’ve been to the NBA stadiums here, I’ve been to some of the baseball stadiums, and the infrastructure is quite elite. And infrastructure for young kids to take up the sport, to be able to go and hit a number of balls — cricket is a sport of repetition. The more you play, the more volume you get, you’re going to get better.”
He noted that India’s own facilities were still developing in the 1990s and early 2000s before reaching the scale they operate at today. “If America gets there, and the quality of exposure that these players get — the more you play, the more you fail, you’re going to get better. Exposure and infrastructure are the two things. And the way you administer the sport is going to be very critical.”
For one night in Dallas, the administration question could wait. What mattered was that one of the most decorated cricketers in history had shown up, competed, engaged with fans young and old, and spoken thoughtfully about what it would take for the sport to truly belong in America. The chants of his name from the Grand Prairie stands suggested the demand is already there. The question now is whether the ecosystem can meet it.
