ACAC St. Louis revisits Pragyan Ojha's 2018 mentoring visit

Pragyan Ojha’s day at ACAC Park still comes up when American Cricket Academy and Club of St. Louis talks about what youth cricket can look like in Missouri. The former India spinner visited on June 3, 2018, and the club now points to that visit as an example of the kind of mentoring it wants local players to get.

ACAC described Ojha as humble and said he spent time mentoring athletes and sharing his knowledge with the group. In a separate video archive, the club said he spent valuable time with the kids and inspired them to become future stars. Eight years later, the June 3 reflection was less about nostalgia than about the academy’s coaching culture and the standard it wants to set for boys and girls ages 5 to 17.

That matters because ACAC has spent years building a real pipeline, not just hosting a memorable guest. The academy describes itself as a youth-first, family-oriented organization built around fair play and player development, and it says cricket is its passion and its goal is your dream. Its nonprofit profile says it was born from parents wanting to give back through youth sport, and its public listings say it serves more than 150 St. Louis-area youth players through training, education, camps, leagues and tournaments.

The numbers suggest the club has translated that mission into growth. St. Louis Public Radio reported in 2019 that the academy had expanded from 6 members to about 300, with founder and president Ajay Jhamb saying the goal was to help local kids get involved. ACAC also says it has hosted multi-state tournaments for surrounding states, a sign that the club’s calendar has moved beyond a single showcase visit and into a broader competition and development structure.

Ojha’s cricket résumé gives that memory extra weight. ESPNcricinfo lists the left-arm orthodox bowler from Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India, with 24 Test matches, 89 runs and 113 wickets. For St. Louis families weighing where to place a child, the lasting impact of his visit seems less like celebrity and more like proof of concept: a high-profile cricket voice, a local academy, and a youth program that is still trying to turn one afternoon at ACAC Park into a steady local pathway.