Hayward Lions Cricket Club

All set for todays game. Go Lions !!!

What a great win for Lions yesterday. What a 100 from Mahesh Naidu. He stood up and let his bat do the talking when it mattered the most. What a performance !

What a win yesterday for Hayward Lions. Our star performer yesterday was Arshad Kazmi. Arshad scored 22 runs and picked up 4 wickets. Way to go Lions !!

We love when we win. Hayward Lions defeated Bay Area Thunders by 21 runs. The winning team posing for a picture right after the victory. Way to go Lions !!!

Team in our new kits for this season before the start of todays game.

Our top performers today:

Arshad Kazmi ( 9-2-35-4 )
Ushang Thakker ( 9-0-39-3 )
Kishan ( 7-0-29-3 )

Well bowled guys 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

We have restricted the opposition to 204. Lets win this Lions !!!!

Few pictures from our home grounds at MLK and Anthony school in Hayward as they are ready to host the summer league matches. Yes, you heard it right we have 2 home grounds with 3 pitches. Don’t you want to play on them already?

Beautiful setting for our first game of the summer season.

A few photos from the opening of our new ground at Anthony Ochoa In Hayward

SMCC was found in January 1999 by a group of avid cricket players and friends. With Arshad Kazmi’s hard work to get everything together including the ground and finding a committed team for 1999 cricket season, SMCC entered the BACA league for the first time in 1999 and won.

After everyone giving 100% of their time, commitment and effort, the members worldwide with a great team with enthusiastic players, a beautiul ground in San Mateo (A little windy, but not too hot) founded by Arshad, and a membership with the NCCA took SMCC to the next level.

Arshad Kazmi and Humayun Rehman put in incessant amount of effort to put the cricket pitch together. They first joined the C league and quickly made their mark on the league. Unfortunately, they did not win the season, but it did win outstanding supporting team cup for their league. They kept playing on C division for a few years finally they step up their game for B division. Having too many players in the club Mr. Kazmi decided to build SMCC II.

In 2003 our ground in San Mateo was taken back by district due to construction. Mr. Kazmi and his worker Mr. Rafael found the ground in San Leandro that once again started the tedious process to start working on the cricket pitch for this new ground. Meanwhile SMCC partnered with the Berkeley cricket club and setup 2 practice pitches and one main pitch. After a great year Berkeley decided to leave and SMCC start growing and had 3 teams. One team in the A division 2 teams in the C and D division respectively. With the new ground in San Leandro SMCC renamed themselves to SL Lions.

In 2010 club was closed due to personal issues in the club and some politics. After a break of five years, Mr. Kazmi rebuild the team and started playing in NCCA again. In end of 2017 our ground at San lLeandro was taken away from the club due to district needs raising rents. This also caused SL Lions to leave the NCCA in 2015 join the Bay Area Cricket Alliance (BACA).

Mr. Kazmi went out of the way and once again worked hard to get a new ground, this time in Hayward with his friends helps. As of now our club known as Hayward Lions. We are a bunch of new guys with great team values and we play like family. In a short span of time we have quickly gelled in with each other and brought up a great team today. So “ WATCH OUT” for Hayward Lions this league. No matter we win or lose but our unity is our strength.