USA Cricket Vice-Captain Aaron Jones poses next to a giant cricket ball placed in a market to mark 100 days of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in Miami, Florida on February 22, 2024.
Chandan Khanna | Afp | Getty Images
A gentleman cricket world cup comes to US soil for the first time in June as the sport prepares to chart its future in the US
Cricket, a game similar to baseball, originated in England and has long been popular there. But the sport has flourished in India, the world’s most populous country, as well as some other former British colonies.
In the US, it is mostly immigrants and their children who enjoy cricket. But in 2023, the sport got a boost as Major League Cricket debuted in the US with six teams: Los Angeles Knight Riders, MI New York, San Francisco Unicorns, Seattle Orcas, Texas Super Kings and Washington Freedom.
And now, the USA men’s national cricket team will represent the country in this year’s International Cricket Council Men’s T20 World Cup. Teams play in the Twenty20 format, or T20, the shortest and most popular form of the sport. While traditional cricket matches can last up to five days, a T20 match usually lasts around three hours.
This year’s World Cup is being jointly hosted by the USA and the West Indies and will be held at three US stadiums—in Texas, Florida and New York—as well as multiple locations in the West Indies.
“This is a historic opportunity for the USA,” said former ESPN cricket writer Peter Della Penna.
Success in India
Although it hasn’t broken in the US, cricket has seen success in countries like Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa and the West Indies. But it arguably hit the biggest mark in India, where it is the most popular sport in a country of more than 1.4 billion people, according to research firm Statista.
Cricket is already a big business in the Asian subcontinent. In 2022, it accounted for 85% of India’s national expenditure on sports, according to ISPOwhich hosts trade shows for sports businesses.
And viewership continues to break records. Disney said Disney Star Network’s telecast of the professional Indian Premier League, or IPL, tournament in 2023 saw a 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 exceeded $1 billion, according to Forbes, and investors are taking notice. In June 2021, private equity firm RedBird picked up a 15% stake in IPL team Rajasthan Royals for $37.5 million.
A year later, the Board of Control for Cricket in India, the country’s governing body for the sport, sold television and digital 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 BCCI.
The World Cup games in early June will bring some of that star power to the US, with a high-profile India-Pakistan rivalry culminating in a USA-India match.
“[The U.S.-India] The match is already sold out with 34,000 seats in the stadium in New York,” said Della Penna. “That just gives you a sense of the size of the opportunity that [the U.S. is] we’re going to have during the World Cup – with a television audience that’s unprecedented for any match the US has ever been involved with – if you consider the Indian market and other markets like England or Australia.”
The ICC’s decision to host part of the World Cup in the US — and particularly the much-anticipated India-Pakistan match — was strategic move to take advantage of the growth potential in the country, according to USA Cricket. The USA will host the tournament a few years before it comes to cricket Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
Della Penna, who has been involved in cricket for nearly two decades, also said the move is financially motivated.
“[The ICC] they made sure to put the india vs pakistan match on american soil because they know there are a few million people in it [South Asian] of the diaspora who are huge cricket fans,” Della Penna said.
Cricketers Liam Plunkett, centre-left, and Dwayne Bravo, centre-right, pose for photographs with children during a media day to mark 100 days before the 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup jointly hosted by the West Indies and the US , in Times Square in New York, February 22, 2024.
Mike Stobe | Inc | Getty Images
Tasmai Krishnan, a teenage cricket fan in India and host of the “Cricstatic” podcast, said the sport is an “integral part” of Indian culture. With new sports like pickleball gaining popularity, Tasmai said he hopes cricket will also grow in the U.S. and is interested to see how the U.S. will fit into the global cricket circuit after the World Cup.
“From the Indian perspective, this opens up another range of cricket here because it unlocks another country that will be a tough competitor in the future,” Tasmai said. “This is a great learning opportunity for Team USA and to see a nation like the USA participate really fills my heart with joy.”
‘A dream come true’
The match between the US and India 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 of the world cup games will be held. Samuel is the head coach and director of the Queens United Cricket Academy, which nurtures cricketing skills for children and teenagers. Although he immigrated to the US from India in 1987, he also coached cricket in England, Australia and South Africa. When he arrived in New York, he wanted to pass the sport.
“I was very excited,” he said of learning the World Cup would be held in his backyard. “I never thought this would 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 the launching pad for cricket in the US – but he wants no side in the final match.
“I like to see good cricket. I have no allegiance. I want to see the USA show good talent and I want to see that good bat and bowl and a lot of sixers,” he said. 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 USA, the country he was born in, because he wants to play cricket professionally and for Team USA.
Jeremy also has his tickets to the world cup, along with his friends, none of whom have seen a major cricket match before.
“It’s really exciting to be able to watch it here – it’s 15 minutes from my house,” he said. “It’s a big moment for us to finally see one… It makes me feel happy because now more people will know about cricket and start playing it.”
Others are more interested in rooting for the Indian team against their traditional rivals.
California resident Mythili Sankaran, who said she has watched every match India has played in the last 25 years, said she doesn’t even watch the USA-India match and travels to New York only for the India-Pakistan installment of the World Cup .
“Growing up in India with the Indian team, we were always the underdogs. Now, India is one of the most promising, if not the most powerful team in world cricket,” said Sankaran, who said she played cricket at university. level in India before immigrating to the US
“To be able to watch all these international stars, to watch an India-Pakistan match in the US — I never thought I would do that in my life,” he said. “I think the cricket audience in the US is maturing in large part because of Indian-Americans and it’s about time.”
And ultimately, Sankaran said, she hopes the world cup marks the beginning of a new era.
“What I hope is… people will see women’s cricket in the US as well,” she said. “The US women’s cricket team is doing really, really well, so hopefully there will be a lot more awareness and exposure to that.”