United States cricket vice-captain Aaron Jones poses next to a giant cricket ball, set up at a market to mark 100 days of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, in Miami, Florida , February 22, 2024.
Chandan Khanna | Afp | Getty Images
A major Cricket World Cup will take place on American soil for the first time in June as the sport seeks to chart its future in the United States.
Cricket, a game similar to baseball, originated in England and has long been popular there. But the sport has boomed in India, the world’s most populous country, as well as other former British colonies.
In the United States, it is mainly immigrants and their children who love cricket. But in 2023, the sport took off when Major League Cricket debuted in the United States with six teams: Los Angeles Knight Riders, MI New York, San Francisco Unicorns, Seattle Orcas, Texas Super Kings and Washington Freedom.
And now, the United States men’s national cricket team will represent the home country in this year’s International Cricket Council Men’s T20 World Cup. Teams play in the Twenty20, or T20, format, the shortest and most popular form of the sport. While traditional cricket matches can last up to five days, a T20 match typically lasts around three hours.
This year’s World Cup is co-hosted by the United States and the West Indies and will take place in three American stadiums – in Texas, Florida and New York – as well as several locations in the West Indies.
“This is a historic opportunity for the United States,” said Peter Della Penna, former ESPN cricket writer.
Success in India
Although it has yet to break through in the United States, cricket has seen success in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa and the West Indies. But it is arguably the most popular sport in India, where it is the most popular sport in a country of more than 1.4 billion people, according to research firm Statista.
And the audience continues to break records. Disney said its broadcast on Disney Star Network of the professional Indian Premier League, or IPL, tournament in 2023 saw a record 505 million viewers in India, making it the first to attract more than half a billion viewers .
The average value of an IPL team has surpassed $1 billion, according to Forbes, and investors are taking note. In June 2021, private equity firm RedBird took a 15% stake in IPL team Rajasthan Royals for $37.5 million.
A year later, the Board of Control for Cricket in India, the governing body for the sport in the country, sold television and digital broadcasting rights for a record $6.2 billion. This gave the IPL the second highest value per match for a sports league in the world, behind the NFL, according to Jay Shahhonorary secretary of the BCCI.
The World Cup matches in early June will bring some of that star power to the United States, with a high-profile India-Pakistan competition culminating in a United States-India match.
“The match (between the United States and India) is already sold out, with 34,000 seats in New York,” Della Penna said. “It just gives you an idea of the magnitude of the opportunity that (the United States is) going to have during the World Cup – with an unprecedented television audience for any match that the United States has ever participated in before – if we consider the Indian market and other markets such as England or Australia.
The ICC’s decision to host part of the World Cup in the United States – and in particular the highly anticipated India-Pakistan match – was a strategic move aimed at capitalizing on the country’s growth potential, according to USA Cricket . The United States will host the tournament a few years before cricket arrives at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
Della Penna, who has covered cricket for almost two decades, also said the decision was financially motivated.
“(The ICC) made sure to stage the India-Pakistan match on American soil because they know there are a few million people in the (South Asian) diaspora who are big cricket fans,” said Della Penna.
Cricketers Liam Plunkett, center left, and Dwayne Bravo, center right, pose for photos with children during a media day marking 100 days remaining until the 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup co-hosted in the West Indies and the United States, in Times Square in New York, February 22, 2024.
Mike Stobe | CCI | Getty Images
Tasmai Krishnan, a teenage cricket enthusiast in India and host of the “Cricstatic” podcast, said the sport was an “integral part” of Indian culture. With the growing popularity of new sports such as pickleball, Tasmai said he hoped cricket would also grow in the United States and was interested to see how the United States would fit into the world circuit of cricket after the world cup.
“From the Indian point of view, it opens up a new range of cricket here because it opens the way for another country to be a fierce competitor in the future,” Tasmai said. “It’s a great learning opportunity for Team USA, and to see a nation like the United States participating, it really fills my heart with joy.”
‘A dream come true’
The U.S.-India matchup will strike an interesting balance for Indian-Americans in choosing which country to cheer for, Della Penna said.
One of those people is George Samuel, a resident of Nassau County, New York, where some World Cup matches will be held. Samuel is the head coach and director of the Queens United Cricket Academy, which develops the cricket skills of children and adolescents. Although he immigrated to the United States from India in 1987, he has also coached cricket in England, Australia and South Africa. Arriving in New York, he wanted to pass on this sport.
“I was super excited,” he said of learning the World Cup would be held in his backyard. “I never thought this was going to happen when I came to this country. It’s a dream come true.”
Samuel, who has already secured his tickets, said he believes this World Cup will be a launching pad for cricket in the United States – but he is not supporting either team in the final match.
“I like to see good cricket. I don’t have loyalties. I want to see USA show good skill, and I want to see that good bat, that good bowl and a lot of sixers,” he said. -he declares. A “sixer” is the cricket equivalent of a baseball home run.
Samuel’s teenage son Jeremy said that despite his family’s Indian roots, he cheers for the United States, the country he was born in, because he wants to play cricket professionally and for Team USA.
Jeremy also has his World Cup tickets, as do his friends, none of whom have ever been to a major cricket match.
“It’s really exciting to be able to watch it here, it’s 15 minutes from my house,” he said. “It’s a great moment for us to finally see one. … It makes me happy because now more people will know about cricket and start playing it.”
Others are more interested in supporting the Indian team against their traditional rivals.
Mythili Sankaran, a resident of California, who said she has watched every match played by India in the last 25 years, said that she does not even watch the match between the United States and India and that She was only going to New York for the India-Pakistan World Cup. .
“Growing up in India with the Indian team, we were always the underdogs. Today, India is one of the most promising and powerful teams in world cricket,” said Sankaran, who said having played cricket at university. level in India before immigrating to the United States
“Being able to watch all these international stars, watching an India-Pakistan match in the United States, I didn’t think I would do that in my lifetime,” she said. “I think the cricket audience in the United States is maturing in large part because of Indian Americans, and it’s time.”
And ultimately, Sankaran said, she hopes the World Cup marks the start of a new era.
“What I hope is that… people will be able to see women’s cricket in the United States as well,” she said. “The U.S. women’s cricket team is doing pretty well, so I hope there’s a lot more awareness and visibility around that.”
cnbc
