Seventeen-year-old Arminder Singh Gill has already made it from small village of Nizampur in the Indian state of Punjab to the African playing fields of the Under-19 Cricket World Cup, and now the recent Freedom High School graduate is focused on joining his American teammates in Los Angeles in 2028 when his sport returns to the Olympic Games for the first time in 128 years.

Becoming a cricket standout in the United States requires working a system that doesn’t have the same well-developed infrastructure that would have been available to Gill had he remained in his native India.

Vincent Kumar, head coach of the USA men’s U-19 cricket team, said the United States is still missing some pieces that would make it easier for aspiring players to prepare for a professional career.

For example, the U.S. fields a U-19 team, but once players age out of that bracket they must qualify for the full men’s squad to keep training with their country, or seek other opportunities to keep playing, likely overseas. Other countries field U-21 and U-23 teams, giving developing players more chances to advance even if they don’t immediately qualify for the full men’s squad.

Kumar said Gill has a shot at both making the jump from the U-19 roster to the full men’s roster and joining that team for the LA Olympics in 2028. But nothing is guaranteed at this level of sport.

What is known is how much time the Gill family spends supporting Arminder’s cricket career. Father Parmjit Gill spends many hours driving back and forth to New Jersey so his son can practice with his academy team in Somerset.

Tournament travel has taken the family across the United States and around the world, with the 2026 U-19 Cricket World Cup being hosted in Zimbabwe and Namibia earlier this year.

India won that tournament and dominated the play of Group B, in which the United States finished fourth. They had a challenging draw, losing a warmup game to Pakistan before succumbing to India and Bangladesh in group play. The American side beat Scotland in their playoff game for 16th place.

Gill said playing against India was “a really intense moment” and that it was a special honor playing for the USA against one of the best teams in the world.

“It’s an honor representing a country,” Arminder said. “Hopefully I will in the sport, in the full team to be representing USA if I do good in the upcoming tryouts.”

For the return of cricket to the Olympics in 2028, the status of the United States as the host country will guarantee it a slot in the six-team tournament. Kumar said Gill has shown potential.

“He’s good, and he’s a very disciplined boy,” Kumar said. “What I’ve observed here in the U.S. — he’s one of the most disciplined boys that I’ve met. Yeah. He’s really focused.”

Building a family legacy

Parmjit Gill says his son learned cricket playing in front of their house in India and at the local playground. The family moved to Bethlehem in 2019 to pursue professional opportunities for Parmjit and academic opportunities for Arminder and his younger sister, Amardeep.

Although father and son practice together, heading to the Freedom High School track when they need to get extra rounds in, Parmjit is a former volleyball player who did not grow up playing cricket. Arminder also played volleyball for Freedom, specializing in the defensive libero position.

Amardeep, who is a rising senior at Freedom, also doesn’t have a cricket background, but she said it’s been fun having fellow students point out to her that they’re impressed with her brother’s cricket clips on Instagram.

Amardeep and Parmjit Gill both said they are proud of Arminder and feel confident he’ll be playing Olympic cricket in Los Angeles. His mother, Baljinder Gill, will also be cheering him on.

In the meantime, Gill is headed to Lehigh University to study civil engineering, a course of study he says will build on the academic foundation he got from his engineering courses at Freedom.

“I was fascinated how people made the stuff, how everything works, and also it gave me opportunity to make my own ideas into real life and help solve problems,” he said.